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mehall posted:I said it before, and nobody really argued - no it should be named after the harry potter wizarding trains to drum up tourist business honestly I think part of it's that things like British Airways feel performatively british, like hey look at us aren't WE a big deal. It's very James Bond with his Union Jack parachute British Rail doesn't even have the flag on it, it's just a matter-of-fact public institution, and I think that's the vibe Labour would have to go for e- the 413 class train can carry a full complement of good girls and boys on their daily commute 
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Dec 31, 2019 00:02
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Beefeater1980 posted:This is a principled position, but to be honest with yourself it’s also a very unpopular one. It's a thread full of anarchists, communists & the like. A lot of us are quite fine with taking an unpopular stance when it is in fact the morally correct one.
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Dec 31, 2019 00:07
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baka kaba posted:e- the 413 class train can carry a full complement of good girls and boys on their daily commute But why? Shouldn't doggies be walkiesing?
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Dec 31, 2019 00:11
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apparently they're all rescue doggos and the man does this "to bring them joy"
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Dec 31, 2019 00:13
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Gotta love the raised platform for the tiny pooch. They have their assigned carriages  Edit: If he runs over a dog, does it pop up at the back in its own carriage?
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Dec 31, 2019 00:14
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Beefeater1980 posted:This is a principled position, but to be honest with yourself it’s also a very unpopular one. Even a fairly mild form of this position was poison to Jeremy Corbyn. As Darth Walrus said, the electorate is the nation. The solution to that I think fits in with what I posted earlier about Boockhin's transition from Stalinism to libertarian municipalism to social ecology. The State is a thing that is here for the foreseeable and just just kicking it over isn't going to make us anarchist communes any more than it will make the libertarian right into randian supermen, but a balanced minimal* state that is committed to its own integrity (which it will like any other superorganism) but also social security, healthcare, and human rights, while encouraging the growth of the municipal ecologies that manage themselves locally as a parallel power sounds like our best shot out of nationalism even if it means dealing with it in the shorter term. *Bookchin's minimal state is not Thatcher's minimal state nor Hoppe's minimal state, but a state that exists mostly to try to stop the sort of poo poo that the Thatchers and Hoppes would like to do. A state that functions mostly on funding schools and hospitals and saying "stop building whites only communes you fucks".
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Dec 31, 2019 00:15
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Guavanaut posted:Nationalism is mind poison, but this is a national election, on national issues, so it's guaranteed that something nationalist sounding will come in, even if that's "we will renationalize the water" (when in reality that would be publicly owned regional nonprofit water boards). Instituting waterboarding does sound a bit like this new muscular nationalist socialism, yes 
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Dec 31, 2019 00:21
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Wait, what is this? If it's a thing to donate to I will have some funds early January. . It's a fund to help UKMTers who fall on hard times and need a bit of help buying food, making bills or rent, etc. It will be run by a democratically elected committee of 5 people plus a separate trusted person who manages the actual account. I'm sure donations will be super appreciated when it starts accepting them in probably late Jan? People who want to nominate themselves (or others) for the committee should PM Rarity.
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Dec 31, 2019 00:38
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OwlFancier posted:I'm not sure what you can draw from peterloo other than the idea that the nation and patriotism and all that poo poo is a complete lie and that class is the only thing you can stick to. Yes the general populace also has this same instinctive approach to reading history and understanding meta-communal sociological notions. This thread sometimes, I swear...
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Dec 31, 2019 00:38
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SF author Ken McLeod’s blog is (was?) named after a quote from someone or other; _the early days of a better nation_. That sounds like a good sentiment to me.
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Dec 31, 2019 00:48
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radmonger posted:SF author Ken McLeod’s blog is (was?) named after a quote from someone or other; _the early days of a better nation_. Alasdair Gray? "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation".
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Dec 31, 2019 00:51
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If the nation is the electorate and the electorate consistently make decisions to shaft anyone who's not considered a valid part of the nation for whatever reason - being unemployed, wrong religion, wrong colour, whatever, then maybe the issue is the nation state and the electorate, not the political stances of people who want a more inclusive and expanded notion of the state? I don’t think there was anything wrong with Labour's policies last election and the backpeddling from this thread that actually, they're bad because they didn't win is gross and unsettling. There were certainly tactical and PR issues which have emerged since the election, but the fundamental positions of Corbyn's Labour were morally correct for the most part and insofar as they had issues it's because they didn't go far enough. Maybe like Plato and dozens of other philosophers have said for millennia, democracy is just a broken system which leads to the leaders who appeal best to the polis' vanities gaining power. Insofar as we learned anything it's that the polis of a modern society is just as easy to manipulate with propaganda as any other polis in history. The only conclusion I've been able to draw for the left is that electoralism is a busted flush and there is no longer a path to power for the left through the democratic process.
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Dec 31, 2019 01:04
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You know when you're 15 and you realise for the first time that the right is real dumb and only dumb people vote for them but as soon as they're in power it's really really easy to make more dumb people by just loving with education, and that it's always harder to educate people than to dumb them down?
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Dec 31, 2019 01:07
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Coohoolin posted:You know when you're 15 and you realise for the first time that the right is real dumb and only dumb people vote for them but as soon as they're in power it's really really easy to make more dumb people by just loving with education, and that it's always harder to educate people than to dumb them down? See the right isn't real dumb and plenty of smart people vote for the right (often because they're self interested and like tax cuts). But what the right does love doing that the left has qualms about doing is using tools that are anti-democratic, like regulating media to their advantage and gerrymandering. The success of the populist right wing argument is also grounded in emotion and people's need to feel superior to others and punish others rather than the class analysis and data generally involved on the left. Historically the right also has few qualms about infiltrating public bodies in a coordinated way and changing their make-up to be more friendly to a bigoted agenda. The police is the most obvious target, but from the stuff I see from squaddies it looks like that kind of fuckery is also popular in the forces. So maybe what we need to learn from the right isn't their policies or the fundamental appeal of their argument - the actual argument right wingers make is unimportant to them provided it presses the appropriate emotional levers - but to be equally ruthless and to exploit every bureaucratic foothold the left can take advantage of from council seats and civil service positions up to shift the machinery of government to favour the left. The kinder gentler politics of Corbyn was ineffective so maybe it's time for the left to harden up and abandon its decorum in pursuit of more meaningful goals.
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Dec 31, 2019 01:25
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Guavanaut posted:There's a bit of a feedback problem though, as Beefeater1980 pointed to. You can vote to put better politicians in charge of whatever administrative unit you live in without having strong feelings about your administrative unit being tied to a particular piece of land for reasons beyond practicality or it being the bestest of the bunch. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 01:55
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Purple Prince posted:See the right isn't real dumb and plenty of smart people vote for the right (often because they're self interested and like tax cuts). Extremely  Don't play fair, the Tories and Piss Tories need to get kicked out, not politely called out.
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Dec 31, 2019 02:16
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Purple Prince posted:See the right isn't real dumb and plenty of smart people vote for the right (often because they're self interested and like tax cuts). I've been saying this sort of thing to anyone who will listen for a while now. It doesn't need to be the sole focus, but any serious attempt to move politics substantially leftwards that doesn't engage in this stuff is bound for failure.
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Dec 31, 2019 02:45
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Hi everyone! Sorry for the absence, I took a bit of time off from politics after the election because it's shite and i hate it, and then it turned into christmas etc, but I should be back itt properly just after the new year. We've got a dumb and fun podcast episode planned (hopefully releasing on Wednesday if i've got the time, otherwise later this week if all goes to plan tomorrow) and then another little 2019 awards show. Once that's all done, it should be back to regular pod episodes 
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Dec 31, 2019 03:56
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Purple Prince posted:See the right isn't real dumb and plenty of smart people vote for the right (often because they're self interested and like tax cuts). See, I'd say this is a considerably more dangerous argument. The basic purpose of democracy is to create accountability, because more equal societies tend to be generally better-run for a whole host of reasons, and democracy fails when rulers are insulated from those they rule. Remember Tony Benn's five questions. The neoliberal project collapsed into fascism because it attempted to have democracy and laissez-faire economics at the same time, only for the ever-escalating wealth inequality of the latter to destroy the former. Go for gerrymandering and other voter suppression tactics, and you'll soon see the people you brought to power turning on you, because they have no more need for you. Go outside the system, yes, but do it to help and empower people, not disempower them (although fighting disempowerment by others is totes fine and cool, of course). Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 04:30
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The left can't do Nationalism. It's just not going to work. Trying to ape the Right really does just legitimise them and surrenders the argument. It's clear that people do want something to believe in though. The future is grim, liberalism has failed and we're all incredibly atomized. Clinging on to a flag, as the last relic of Things Making Sense is pretty natural in these circumstances. It's had to fault the Boomers for trying to mentally regress back to an earlier time when everyone who saw a whiff of the 80s is trying to re-live the dodgy wonders of 8-bit. So What Is To Be Done. I think we can win on "patriotism" but we need to redefine it. The Right have shown that people don't like being under the control of big distant power brokers. That's actually great! All that work has been done for us because the entire point of the Left is to get rid of big concentrations of power. So we should go smaller. Patriotism in the community, not some meaningless flag but the places we work, where our children play and the people that make that. If the Left can push a federal vision of equals, rather than a Westminster elite pulling the strings, then we can get where we need to get, without sacrificing our principles to, let's be honest here, National Socialism. The best bit is that the right have done all the groundwork for us. We just need to keep pushing on all the tensions that Brexit laid bare and don't let the Right get away with stopping at the Nation State as the one true unit of Englishness. "Keep taking back control".
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Dec 31, 2019 04:34
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Disnesquick posted:The left can't do Nationalism. It's just not going to work. Trying to ape the Right really does just legitimise them and surrenders the argument. It's clear that people do want something to believe in though. The future is grim, liberalism has failed and we're all incredibly atomized. Clinging on to a flag, as the last relic of Things Making Sense is pretty natural in these circumstances. It's had to fault the Boomers for trying to mentally regress back to an earlier time when everyone who saw a whiff of the 80s is trying to re-live the dodgy wonders of 8-bit. Again, the idea that 'the left can't do nationalism' is the idea that the left does not have anything to offer the voting citizenry of the UK. I mean, come the gently caress on, that's nonsense on its face. Why the gently caress are we only accepting the right's framing of what's good for the British public? The idea that the left will never and can never be popular is an illusion that a lot of very rich and unscrupulous people have spent a lot of time creating. Don't fall for it.
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Dec 31, 2019 05:24
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I mean if we boil it down it’s ultimately a trust issue. How do we persuade a majority that we are On Their Side against all the crap that life can throw at them? It genuinely is important to avoid outright attacking anyone’s identity. Even if they built it around horrible things. But that’s only a mitigation, it’s not going to build trust by itself (or at least, not as much as the Right can by banging the same drum). So it seems like the only way forward is slow, person to person solidarity. Go out into communities and help; build community organisations that support people, build a large group of people who have a reason to trust our message because it comes from us and they trust us. Like, by all means play as dirty as the Tories do in councils or whatever, but at the end of the day we can’t do anything without a sufficiently big majority of the population onside. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 05:35
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The Labour party is completely snookered. The tory right and its dogwhistling will always rile people up against the left should we stay there, and I predict the tories will create an illusion of a "mainstream" who will be apparently socially liberal just on the surface, which will mount an attack on Labour if it concedes on any minority rights. The party is going to lose another election, so you might as well go full scrappy doo and not cede an inch of ground. Make yourselves ideologically pure and go down kicking and screaming.
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Dec 31, 2019 06:02
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Beefeater1980 posted:This is a principled position, but to be honest with yourself it’s also a very unpopular one. Even a fairly mild form of this position was poison to Jeremy Corbyn. As Darth Walrus said, the electorate is the nation. It's not a principled position, it's the only position that I think will help me. Everything about my life tells me that the state hates me and wants me dead if it can't profit from me. How am I supposed to feel good about it?
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Dec 31, 2019 06:45
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Disnesquick posted:So What Is To Be Done. I think we can win on "patriotism" but we need to redefine it. The Right have shown that people don't like being under the control of big distant power brokers. That's actually great! All that work has been done for us because the entire point of the Left is to get rid of big concentrations of power     
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Dec 31, 2019 06:49
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Azza Bamboo posted:The party is going to lose another election, so you might as well go full scrappy doo and not cede an inch of ground. Make yourselves ideologically pure and go down kicking and screaming. It certainly will with that attitude. Why do you think it will lose another election? 5 years is an eternity in politics.
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Dec 31, 2019 09:29
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Darth Walrus posted:
what does that have to do with nationalism, like where do you think a program of vaguely redistributive economics and nationalism is gonna get you
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Dec 31, 2019 09:43
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english patriotism/nationalism as well as being racist and genocidal is capitalist by definition so uh good luck trying to co-opt that from the left
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Dec 31, 2019 09:46
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On the other hand, in the absence of any decent productive multiethnic British national identity, over half of our youth and far more of our olds think that the country should perpetually be ruled by a clique of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants hailing from a tiny region of Hannover. I'm not sure how you even get to that point without believing some poo poo that would make Arthur de Gobineau seem moderate, but in terms of all the other poo poo it seems to go hand in hand with, it may be a keystone of many other problems.
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Dec 31, 2019 09:58
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gh0stpinballa posted:english patriotism/nationalism as well as being racist and genocidal is capitalist by definition so uh good luck trying to co-opt that from the left gh0stpinballa posted:what does that have to do with nationalism, like where do you think a program of vaguely redistributive economics and nationalism is gonna get you The thing is, and it is a thing I keep seeing, is that folks like us keep going to nationalism as opposed to talking about countries nation states etc. Because it's easier to be mad at nationalism (and we should be) but it's also hard to know what to do after a defeat this large. The fact that "We should build a new form of identity for this country" and "Ein Volk, Ein Reich" are considered the same thing is perhaps a bit of a problem.
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Dec 31, 2019 09:59
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Josef bugman posted:The thing is, and it is a thing I keep seeing, is that folks like us keep going to nationalism as opposed to talking about countries nation states etc. Because it's easier to be mad at nationalism (and we should be) but it's also hard to know what to do after a defeat this large. labour lost by what 3 million votes, with brexit and corbyn cited as the 2 reasons people stayed away. hit the tories on how bad they're loving up brexit with a leader who is not corbyn while offering 3 or 4 well thought through policy proposals to offer people. seems much more realistic than worrying about building a whole new identity for the country.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:03
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gh0stpinballa posted:labour lost by what 3 million votes, with brexit and corbyn cited as the 2 reasons people stayed away. hit the tories on how bad they're loving up brexit with a leader who is not corbyn while offering 3 or 4 well thought through policy proposals to offer people. seems much more realistic than worrying about building a whole new identity for the country. Well if we are going to go big why not try something different as well. The fact is that going "rebuild what we are and stand for" isn't always a bad idea to have.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:07
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Guavanaut posted:I'm not sure how you even get to that point without believing some poo poo that would make Arthur de Gobineau seem moderate, but in terms of all the other poo poo it seems to go hand in hand with, it may be a keystone of many other problems. So I had this debate many times with a friend from an ex-Communist country, who finds it absurd that our political system is at its core an unreforned feudal system. The monarchy is definitely the fount of the British class system and all that goes with that, but their position as the centre of British identity makes it almost impossible to consider getting rid of the monarchy while having Britain still resemble its current culture and identity, insofar as it exists. So if you want to reshape British culture to egalitarian principles you need to either dramatically reduce the role of the Crown in everyday British life or abolish the monarchy entirely. The problem is once you start talking about disempowering the monarchy you're messing with forces that go way beyond everyday politics, and to the core of what makes Britain a viable political formation. For example, without the Crown, could Scotland be part of the Union? The Acts of Union specifically happened when we had an absolute monarchy and as a product of monarchic behaviour. Now of course you could start looking at a draft constitution for the left and so on, but current US politics shows us the absolute state of a written constitution. It seems like no matter what we'll need a central political entity to preserve the continuity of Britain: it doesn't need to be the Crown, but the example of the USSR and China show us that in the absence of a monarch, people will tend to elevate a Paramount Leader to preserve the continuity of the nation-state beyond everyday politics.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:19
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Josef bugman posted:It certainly will with that attitude. Why do you think it will lose another election? With those 5 years the tories will implement policies that are popular among the demographics who actually get to decide elections. Labour, on the other hand, relies on such a wide and diverse base that it contains all the fault lines in which you can drive a wedge. Let's say the tories get their points based immigration system. If Labour doesn't campaign on reversing it in some way, the lefties get mad. If Labour does campaign on reversing it in some way, the right shifts more into the Tory party. The Tories, on the other hand, have homogenised their base's opinion on the matters they'll implement. We're either relying on a monumental fuckup to provide an opening for us on the scale of the 08 financial crisis, which can't be counted on, or somehow conditioning the right people in the right areas of the country to go out and vote Labour, which we're clearly incompetent at. And that's before you get on to the fact that the Tories will do everything to stack the cards in their favour, including redistricting. I think there's a lot Labour can do without winning an election, and we need to focus on that, because we're probably in for 10 more years. The final point I'll make is that we're in full playground politics mode here. The biggest question facing the Labour party is "why are you a bunch of losers" and our answer thus far has been crying "it's not fair" and "it's the bad guy on our team's fault for loving it up". If you've ever bullied or been bullied, you'll know exactly why it is Labour are such losers: because we feed them those tears and they love it. For the love of God, don't make the next 5 years 5 years of "stop it, you're being mean". Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 10:36
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Purple Prince posted:The monarchy is definitely the fount of the British class system and all that goes with that, but their position as the centre of British identity makes it almost impossible to consider getting rid of the monarchy while having Britain still resemble its current culture and identity, insofar as it exists. Guavanaut posted:Britain has always been pretty bad at being a nation, it's more like the Austro-Hungarian Empire or something, where there's certainly interior parts that are good at defining themselves as nations, often by way of saying "we're not those guys" but the mass as a whole doesn't have much nationalist stuff (good, maybe) and has a bunch of royalist and imperialist nostalgia as binding glue instead (bad, presumably). Cool Britannia and Gordon Brown tried to address that, but they were mostly a marketing exercise devoid of substance so I'm not sure they achieved much. The monarchy is some kind of binding force that seems to transcend national identity, and act as a damper on the worst parts of nationalism, but is also a massive blind spot in that it's literally a WASP family owning the source of all laws and even most of those 70% of Britons who claim no racial prejudice become massively uncomfortable with themselves if you ask "could a Black woman be queen?" There's arguments that the monarchy has prevented fascism by acting as a vent for all that colour trooping flag waving stuff while also being relatively defanged, and that it provides a shared point of pride between someone from London, Ottawa, Kingston, and Belmopan, but looking at the types of things British monarchists also seem to believe it also acts as a conduit for xenophobia in absence of any broad national identity. Charlie isn't popular though, and when he ascends and suddenly becomes George VII or whatever and all the banknotes and postboxes and stamps change, people are going to experience a discomfort about the whole thing that 90% of them have never experienced in their lifetime. That may be a good striking point. Purple Prince posted:For example, without the Crown, could Scotland be part of the Union? The Acts of Union specifically happened when we had an absolute monarchy and as a product of monarchic behaviour. Purple Prince posted:Now of course you could start looking at a draft constitution for the left and so on, but current US politics shows us the absolute state of a written constitution.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:42
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Purple Prince posted:But what the right does love doing that the left has qualms about doing is using tools that are anti-democratic, like regulating media to their advantage and gerrymandering. The success of the populist right wing argument is also grounded in emotion and people's need to feel superior to others and punish others rather than the class analysis and data generally involved on the left. This is the real root of it all, and you nailed it on the head. The right wins because they will use every dirty trick in the book and they do not give a drat. The left is wholesome and good etc. but they refuse to do what needs to be done, which is that at the end of the day they're going to need to realize that yes, you actually do have to sink to their level if you want to stand a chance. The country needed Corbyn, and instead it's got the complete opposite of what it needs. There is nobody that Labour can field who will be electable. They tried sticking to centrist politics with Miliband and he got decimated. Corbyn thought a pull back to traditional values would work and he was right first time round, but got decimated the last GE just like Miliband did. Whoever leads the party when Corbyn stands down is utterly irrelevant, the propaganda machine has a very firm grasp of the voting populace and opposition parties need to assess their strategies for combating that rather than thinking that one day they'll find "The One" who will lead them to victory. Blair knew this, and so he was smart and got cozy with Murdoch. I don't like the guy, but he got it. There's also the unfortunate issue that the right will always be unified and fall in line when needed, but the left remains scattered. You want Tory then you vote Tory. You don't want Tory? Well here's all your choices... The best shot at an election in my opinion is having only one opposition party for people to vote for and for that party to play the Tories at their own game. The people of Scotland are rightfully flocking to the SNP for their voice, but it's an utter clusterfuck elsewhere. I think there's a lot of seats where the non-right votes outweigh the Tory votes.
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Dec 31, 2019 10:47
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baka kaba posted:Those Xmas lectures are on and they're talking some wild shite about AI loving hell. I bet Accenture have already written up proposals to replace benefits tribunal adjudicators with T-800s running a multi-million implementation of return false; OwlFancier posted:It's not a principled position, it's the only position that I think will help me. Everything about my life tells me that the state hates me and wants me dead if it can't profit from me. How am I supposed to feel good about it? You're not alone - I feel exactly the same way, comrade. 
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Dec 31, 2019 10:49
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they even had one of those Pepper robots out to sell the idea, v dystopian
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anecdotally I know a few people who don't really follow politics and aren't familiar with political or economic theory and wouldn't understand half the things this thread talks about but do vote, and I think they didn't vote Labour in part because of a nebulous feeling of disconnection from Corbyn and the Labour party. which is irrational from a materialist perspective, yes, but makes sense in terms of woolly concepts like "being proud to be British" and "being someone you could have a pint with". they don't have the context for internationalism or global justice but they do understand being part of a group and being happy to be part of a group, a group which includes them on the most basic of qualifications
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Dec 31, 2019 10:49
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ynohtna posted:loving hell. I bet Accenture have already written up proposals to replace benefits tribunal adjudicators with T-800s running a multi-million implementation of return false; 
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Dec 31, 2019 10:58
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gh0stpinballa posted:what does that have to do with nationalism, like where do you think a program of vaguely redistributive economics and nationalism is gonna get you Nationalism is simply prioritising the interests of your nation - or, to put it another way, the people you are responsible for as a national government. In a democratic society, it's simply a sales pitch that your policies will make your society better. If we cede that basic concept to far-right blood-and-soil psychos, then we've definitely lost. We're also probably going to lobby much more aggressively for British interests after Brexit, on the grounds that our international protections will be gone and a lot of foreign vultures (America, China, our old friends in the EU, you name it) will be coming for us. The next Labour government, if it can be elected, will have a much greater duty of care in a much more hostile world.
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Dec 31, 2019 12:04
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