The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

poprock

I just realised that could look like I didn’t agree with you Rouj. I do agree with you. You’re RIGHT.

Roujin

Don't worry Poppo, I understood what side of the line you were coming from.

I guess also, shit like this is why I, a lefty, don't want to give the right any concessions, because this is what our country is like now, completely incapable of looking after it's citizens properly. In regards to Monkey's post.

I don't think any courtesy should be extended to the people who have used their political ideology to separate themselves above the majority of people, and use that position to enrich themselves and give themselves advantages that those on the rungs below them cannot access.

At some point, if some sectors of society are so far gone that they cannot understand or acknoledge the exploitations being visited upon them by the ruling elite, then they can not be counted on to ever come round to your way of thinking. I can see how some exchanges of the balance of power are violent as a result of this, because not only can you not convince people they are being lied to, those same people will defend the system that is actively oppressing them.

Roujin

P.s. invest now in my guilltoine startup, etc.

Funkstain

Fuck concessions like "whip the party to abstain in a vote regarding a terrible, shitty, despotic bill, and sack those who vote with their conscience", fuck them.

At least in this forum though we have "voice of the working class" Monkey to educate me on how illiberal and bigoted (?) they all (??) are, and how we should compromise on basic principles of law and morality to gain power, and how not being willing to compromise on a torture and murder protection bill is equivalent to not being willing to compromise on anything. I for one am very grateful.

Extreme centrism eh, amazing

Sorry Monkey just not in a good mood as usual and I dunno this endless call to compromise to please alleged proto-fascists for power's sake doesn't help improve it

Diluted Dante

Because you'll get into power, suddenly do the exact opposite of what you've said you'll do for 5 years, and somehow get away with it.

Brooks

Not because they've been misinformed by a corporate media system. They genuinely want something else.

Um, where do these genuine wants come from I do wonder???

Diluted Dante

They have legitimate concerns about British Soldiers not being able to murder with impugnity.

Brooks

I mean foreign policy is literally foreign to most without very particular kinds of media stoking. You can make some basic guesses about an average human's propensity to fear anything not of The Tribe, but I don't know how you can conclude that people's information diets isn't the key game. The number of people with material, quotidian grief as a result of dealing with Them Foreigns is perishingly small, so how else are people actually forming political positions?

Brooks

On that basis, should a progressive movement spend its energies 'compromising' with damage done, or actually kick the fucking nodes that caused this shit in the first place.

JonB

monkey wrote:

You can't concede something then get it back. That's true and it shouldn't be expected. But all leaders will have to concede stuff. Even someone handed everything in life like Cameron still had to give up his social liberalness when he had the Mail and Telegraph to answer to. He was pro drug legalisation, for instance. Pro-environment. He wasn't allowed to take any of that with him because the Tory electoral coalition wouldn't have it. He probably spent a few days pretending he had a soul to search, then made the tough choice to throw his principles away so he could have the prestige of being PM and get stuck in to all those nice juicy tax cuts. It seems to me that there's a denial that you (‘the Left’ in general) have to compromise at all. About anything. Your policies are all apparently spot on and anything that departs from that is a sell out. In order for you to get any power, and to stop the absolute worst people having it, you'll need to compromise. Not with some media-fuelled, increasingly right-wing agenda that only seeks compromise to nullify opposition. That does exist but it's not what I'm on about. The left need to compromise with the working class just to find the numbers to get into power at any time. Those voters don't have your foreign policy or national security interests. On that, if anything, they're right-wing. Not because they've been misinformed by a corporate media system. They genuinely want something else. They'd prefer the security services err on the side of blowing a terrorist's head off. These are the people who you have to find common ground with. The Labour party is the vehicle for that coalition. You don't seem to appreciate that the leader has to try and bridge both groups. Not give you everything you want all the time. You've had that for 4 years and it didn't work out very well. Economically they're more flexible. Sceptical of big ideas and spending loads of money on big, transformative projects but will give it a fair shake. What would discredit any plans on that front is if that's always the answer. If you're not seen as 'responsible' or 'can't be trusted' on spending, then all your projects start to look like ideological fantasies. Brown ramped up public spending and investment only after promising to follow three years of Tory spending plans, earning trust. So that coalition can get stuff done economically but only if you concede on foreign policy. You'll never get a government that is left-wing on national security. Ever. Give it up. Not without major global change that is beyond the scope of the job of leader of the Labour party. You might get one that is more ethical (or less unethical) than the one at present and can turn things around in the economy. But only if you're willing to do the hard thing and compromise. None of you kicking off in this thread seem willing to.

What a bizarre post.

Look at me and my extremist purity politics just up the page there:

JonB wrote:

I think the basics at this stage are to try and unite a divided party and actually oppose the fuck-up government, suggesting ways you could handle the situation better.

Pie in the sky, me.

I write that stuff about presenting an alternative narrative with concrete promises to gradually try and get people on board, and still met with the same old mush. It's like every hope or expectation for some kind of moral baseline is a compromise too far for the centre - some crazy Marxist plan that will never work.

As for the common sense notion that people are always X, will never vote for Y - these norms change over time. We're where we are now because they've changed in the last 10 years, and they changed in the 30 years before that. Things that were near unthinkable before 2008 are ordinary now. That's down to an influential right-wing constantly pushing the narrative that way and a political centre helping to legimitse them by compromising in that direction. Imagine if they just stood their ground.

LarryDavid

If we hadn't all just lived through a five year lesson in what happens when the right/sensible-wing of the Labour party are expected to concede, compromise and give concessions it wouldn't be so bad.

Get the entire party stained as a racist endeavor? Of course we will. Sabotage an election campaign? Absolutely, we must. Orchestrated resignations, never ending leaks, weekly leadership challenges, a constant stream of bleating and moaning? You bet.

Brooks

Yeah the Labour Party as is isn't fit for its traditional purpose at this point. Time to move on.

mistercrayon

The rub is it’s got great brand awareness.

I think the only time we see new parties getting on well is when both major parties are shown to fail and there’s a big crisis.

monkey

LarryDavid wrote:

If we hadn't all just lived through a five year lesson in what happens when the right/sensible-wing of the Labour party are expected to concede, compromise and give concessions it wouldn't be so bad.

Get the entire party stained as a racist endeavor? Of course we will. Sabotage an election campaign? Absolutely, we must. Orchestrated resignations, never ending leaks, weekly leadership challenges, a constant stream of bleating and moaning? You bet.

You should take this up with everyone saying they’ve conceded too much. The left is behaving exactly the same way now they’re out. It’s just that they’re completely outnumbered and impotent.

monkey

Brooks wrote:

Not because they've been misinformed by a corporate media system. They genuinely want something else.

Um, where do these genuine wants come from I do wonder???

I dunno. Values? Culture? Where do yours come from? You’ve made a value judgement about torture at some point.

monkey

Diluted Dante wrote:

Because you'll get into power, suddenly do the exact opposite of what you've said you'll do for 5 years, and somehow get away with it.

In power, you control the narrative. As evidenced by everyone saying how attitudes shift over time and how no one gave a fuck about the EU until the Tories started pouring poison into their ears every day. But this won’t work with national security. You don’t have to be right-wing but you can’t be anti-Nato, left-wing.

JonB

It's textbook gaslighting. Telling people they're completely inflexible in one breath, then claiming there's only one precise way to win and everyone must fall in line the with the next.

The party is currently broken, and the failure to address the fact that parts of it were telling us that Corbyn had to go because winning was everything, while doing their best to throw an election, will ensure it won't be fixed anytime soon.

The centre have proved they have no intention of compromising with the left, and don't value them at all. I'm not sure what the left is supposed to do with that.

Edit: Following on from Larry.

GooberTheHat

Diluted Dante wrote:

Because you'll get into power, suddenly do the exact opposite of what you've said you'll do for 5 years, and somehow get away with it.

It works for the tories.

Brooks

monkey wrote:

Not because they've been misinformed by a corporate media system. They genuinely want something else.

Um, where do these genuine wants come from I do wonder???

I dunno. Values? Culture? Where do yours come from? You’ve made a value judgement about torture at some point.

Mine come from the information I consume too. That's my whole point. "Genuine want" as if this is some kind of ex nihilo phenomenon is quite daft.

monkey

Jon - not ignoring you, just need longer to reply than I have at the moment.

Brooks wrote:

monkey wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Not because they've been misinformed by a corporate media system. They genuinely want something else.

Um, where do these genuine wants come from I do wonder???

I dunno. Values? Culture? Where do yours come from? You’ve made a value judgement about torture at some point.

Mine come from the information I consume too. That's my whole point.

My point was that it probably didn’t. What info have I read that makes me disgusted by eg paedophilia? Can’t I just not like it?

There’s obviously cultural aspects to all of it, and media is part of culture. But being ok with the Government torturing terrorists isn’t necessarily an attitude you can educate out of people.

Diluted Dante

monkey wrote:

But this won’t work with national security. You don’t have to be right-wing but you can’t be anti-Nato, left-wing.

What about making it impossible to prosecute people who commit war crimes?

monkey

Diluted Dante wrote:

monkey wrote:

But this won’t work with national security. You don’t have to be right-wing but you can’t be anti-Nato, left-wing.

What about making it impossible to prosecute people who commit war crimes?

I expect Labour under any leader to vote against that. And to argue against it, and to defend their position. A defence that will work much better on the people who it needs to work on if they can say they tried to work with the Government and gave this important national security issue due consideration.

Brooks

But being ok with the Government torturing terrorists isn’t necessarily an attitude you can educate out of people.

Um, you can though. I was born with no concept of torture or terrorists or nuffink and yet

Brooks

The organised right actually does actually appreciate this strategic reality - at one level that means unhinged oh noes teh cultral marxists!!! noise, at another it means systemically disenfranchising pesky humanities departments. It's not tidy of execution in the slightest but it is not a complicated project to get the size of.

monkey

What aspect of torture do people need educating about? What information are they missing that will make them agree with you?

Brooks

I'm not interested in a Re-Education programme, that's a fairly stupid framing. I'm more interested in the subtler lifelong information and material environment that turns people into small frightened cunts.

Armitage_Shankburn

Hello

Armitage_Shankburn

World

monkey

Brooks wrote:

I'm not interested in a Re-Education programme, that's a fairly stupid framing. I'm more interested in the subtler lifelong information and material environment that turns people into small frightened cunts.

Which is a big ask for Keir Starmer to try and redress in the 10 second clips he's given on the news. Give him actual power for a period of years and then...maybe, a bit. It's all fear of the other, ancient human tribal stuff. It's not going to be knocked out of the system overnight.

Armitage_Shankburn

Lol

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