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Bobby Deluxe posted:Sorry for derailing the thread. My opinions of how to engage or not engage with politics are after all just my opinion, not an absolute truth. I have been out and given the dog an extra long walk for his birthday. Vote. Don't vote. Vote for minority parties in the hope they can swing a coalition. Vote for joke parties in protest. Do what you want. I can't be fighting people I'm supposed to be on the same side as. While we very much disagree on these things I do have to say that nowt you said was a derail. We debated something political, nobodies mind was changed but its still the purpose of the thread. 'S'all good
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Sep 22, 2020 16:12
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I love this incredibly vague plan of doing extra-electoral "stuff" instead of engaging with parliamentary politics. What is this "stuff"? Protests, riots, strikes, even general strikes presumably - all good things! We should do those things! But what is the mechanism for those things delivering comprehensive change? They can force a government into certain positions, but no amount of protests or strikes will turn the Tories socialist - and if the left abandoned electoral politics, turbo Tories in name or otherwise is the only outcome. There's only one type of extra-electoral "stuff" that can deliver comprehensive change - and that is military. Either a full-scale armed revolution, or maybe somehow a slightly smaller armed coup. That's what we're talking about when we vaguely and euphemistically talk about "stuff". Is anyone getting on that then? Forming their paramilitary groups? Securing armaments? Doing extensive military training? Personally, I think the possibility of armed revolution in this country is pretty loving remote, and I can't say I'm that upset about that as there would be a pretty high likelihood of literally everyone in this thread dying in that case. Within electoralism there is only one likely route to socialism and that is through the Labour Party. Even the much mooted New Socialist Party Or Something would achieve its greatest success forcing the Labour Party to the left, just like UKIP forced the Tories to the right. If someone wants to start that party go ahead (presumably it will be different somehow to the million other fringe leftist parties that have existed). But the only reason UKIP were able to force the Tories to do anything is that there were still shitloads of people in and affiliated with the Conservative party who were extremely sympathetic to the UKIP project. As far as accelerationism goes, probably the best real-life example is surely the German Nazi Party, who came to power through electoralism (maybe not a great idea to abandon that ground then) and then accelerated so hard that their country got invaded and split in half, and then the party was banned and kids were taught in school how bad the Nazis were. Not sure if it's a model we should repeat though. Ultimately, what really annoys me the most about this kind of talk is how short-termist it is. Six years ago people could have, and did, make exactly the same arguments. That the Labour left were a joke, and that they could never gain power in the party, and it's just going to be a revolving door of centrists and right-wingers forever. Then Corbyn won the leadership. And the Labour left (and therefore the country's left) is now in an immeasurably stronger position than it was in 2015. We've basically won over two generations of the country, and the others are dying off (even faster considering the COVID announcements). Starmer won because people were shattered and demoralised by Corbyn's loss, but that doesn't last for ever.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:12
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labour have given me precisely zero reasons to vote for them since soggy kiev took charge, and plenty of reasons not to "we will kill slightly less poors on average, and sometimes we will look fairly sad about doing so- hence we are the only moral choice" isn't really a vote winner with me tbqh, it sounds more like a preamble designed to let sociopath politicians stroke themselves off in the near future about how they made "hard decisions" for "the national interest" right before they retire to whatever loving cushy directorship they have lined up guess my family values must be too broken to appreciate this new leadership direction, or maybe I wasn't exposed to a loving massive union fleg with "britain first" written on it at a key developmental stage of childhood
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Sep 22, 2020 16:15
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It may not last forever but it is diffcult to see how voting for starmer doesn't make it last longer.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:16
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The NI app is weird because it quietly sits saying nothing until suddenly giving you an alert at about midnight once a week saying "yes this app does in fact exist" - heard a lot of people complaining about the lack of frequent notifications (as reassurance basically that it is indeed on and checking)
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Sep 22, 2020 16:16
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excuse me starmer won the leadership because they privatised the labour electoral process after corbyn won (this is true) and the deep state and reticulans just went with a result that seemed plausible to get "kier starmer" into the leadership (this is also true)
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Sep 22, 2020 16:22
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Comrade Fakename posted:
but corbyn didnt get in because people voted for miliband. the opposite in fact
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Sep 22, 2020 16:24
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Isn't Boris announcing new measures soon? Has he announced them yet? It's no surprise you missed them, they were about as useless as possible while still being seen to do something. Sturgeon actually banned going to other people's houses.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:24
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Comrade Fakename posted:I love this incredibly vague plan of doing extra-electoral "stuff" instead of engaging with parliamentary politics. What is this "stuff"? Protests, riots, strikes, even general strikes presumably - all good things! We should do those things! But what is the mechanism for those things delivering comprehensive change? They can force a government into certain positions, but no amount of protests or strikes will turn the Tories socialist - and if the left abandoned electoral politics, turbo Tories in name or otherwise is the only outcome. I love this vague plan of socialism happening through the Labour Party. How? The machinery is so rotten that an actual armed uprising is more likely to succeed than the Labour Party tolerating another rerun of the Corbyn leadership Honestly, having any faith in the Labour Party after the 2015-2019 years of internal sabotage is bewilderingly naive to the point of active stupidity. And that especially goes for the colts like Corbyn and Abbott who got beaten down relentlessly by their supposed colleagues. Yeah, the best a new left party could do is drag Labour left. How the gently caress don't you see that is at least better than now when nothing drags Labour left? forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 16:35
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if another Corbyn happens somehow (they won't let it) then I'll throw them a vote, sure but I honestly think that there's a good chance by the time the next election is slated to roll around and Keith gets his go we'll already be pretty knee-deep into actual, no-fooling societal collapse, so I'm not holding my breath edit - so yeah I guess you can say that even though I think it's all garbage and pointless I'd still throw a leftist leader a vote just for the hell of it. But I will never ever vote for a liberal, not least because liberalism is the reason we're going extinct Barry Foster fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 16:40
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Gorn Myson posted:Labour make it very easy for me not to vote for them because the people currently in charge have spent the last five years claiming that us on the left are stupid, child-like cultists/thugs and then actively sabotaged a project that we got personally invested in that might have improved this country even the tiniest of fractions in order to run on a "these Tories have some nice ideas actually" campaign. Also this! If 'sensible' people are going to lecture/plead for me to vote for labour as the lesser of two evils, it would probably help if those people hadn't spent 4 years calling me a Scumbag, Entryist, Trot, anti-Semite, snowflake child. Labour could at least try and hide their complete contempt for me at the very least.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:41
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forkboy84 posted:I love this vague plan of socialism happening through the Labour Party. How? The machinery is so rotten that an actual armed uprising is more likely to succeed than the Labour Party tolerating another rerun of the Corbyn leadership yeah i think one way to think about this is to consider, knowing what we now know, what a 2017 corbyn labour government would have been actually allowed to achieve i think there does need to be a new party for any hope of actual left wing reforms, the labour party is essentially booby trapped at this point. if you get the leadership the party itself sabotages you and if corbyn had got in he wouldn't have been able to pass anything past that lot of shits maybe if he'd had actually purged the party when they were still shocked by either of the two leadership contests we'd have had a shot so perhaps theres a chance that if kier doesnt win this next election we can take back some control under a leader who would actually do that but... is there one? I mean equally there isnt a new party either making a new party or taking over labour requires resisting an electoral apparatus primarily designed to gently caress us over
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Sep 22, 2020 16:45
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Communist Thoughts posted:excuse me starmer won the leadership because they privatised the labour electoral process after corbyn won (this is true) and the deep state and reticulans just went with a result that seemed plausible to get "kier starmer" into the leadership (this is also true) I'm not sure how much the first part is supposed to be a joke, but ERS have been running Labour internal elections since OMOV came in and have been running a lot (probably most) of the union elections since the 80s.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:51
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forkboy84 posted:I love this vague plan of socialism happening through the Labour Party. How? The machinery is so rotten that an actual armed uprising is more likely to succeed than the Labour Party tolerating another rerun of the Corbyn leadership We all love hyperbole, but in this case, actual armed uprising is literally the only other option. So, are you working on that or not? As I said, I'm pretty pessimistic about your chances if you are. And sorry, let me get this straight: electoralism is worthless and Labour will never be on the left again, but also a new left party (i.e. electoralism) could force Labour to the left. And what precisely is different from this new left party and one of the many many existing and past left parties? And again, you could have said all this stuff about Labour back in early 2015, and then they elected Corbyn leader. So clearly, there exists a large base of people who agreed with his message in the party. They were demoralised and browbeaten into placing Starmer as leader but they are still there. And every day more of them die and more of us are born. It's certainly not going to be easy, or soon, but there is a path to the society we all want through the Labour Party and literally no one has suggested an alternative path that is even a little bit plausible.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:52
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I mean I also think that society will collapse to the point that "the labour party" and the british political and social landscape will be unrecognizable before any chance of a better society is possible at this point. It certainly doesn't seem likely that it is going to happen while there is the faintest possibility of doing literally anything else. The old and the stupid will continue to destroy the future of the young and the worthwhile until they are all dead, and then I guess I hope that there are enough people left afterwards who can band together to make some sort of liveable society in the aftermath. But I don't think it's going to involve me. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 16:54
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Discussion amongst my normally politically disinterested work colleagues is that; A) The government is making an absolute shitshow with its mixed messaging and terrible lockdown decisions (i.e lack thereof). B) The government is soley responsible for the aformentioned shitshow and deaths, and the framing of blaming the public is shamelessly obvious. C) In the event of a full 2nd lockdown, things are going to be hosed if they don't continue the furlough scheme at that 80% level (or stop it altogether) D) The company I work for will probably try to force us to stay in production despite the fact we manufacture non-essential plastics, and have actually built up an unmoving stockpile in the period before the first lockdown. It's anecdotal, but it is kinda reassuring in it's own way that these things are being discussed openly among people who rarely pay attention to politics (and when they do it's usually however it's being framed by the tabloids).
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Sep 22, 2020 16:55
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Tarnop posted:It wasn't a derail, and while the exchange got a little heated it's helpful for people struggling with this decision to see others state and support their positions. Perhaps a more clear way of stating my position is that it is frustrating to see some people* who are extremely persuasive and knowledgeable about politics talk about disengaging from party politics when they are exactly the people who should be getting involved and engaging. Conversely, I understand anyone who is doing so to preserve their sanity / mental health. The right wing has turned public debate into a terrifying poo poo show. * By which I mean I'm on my phone so it's not easy to go back through and look for who, it's not a passive agressive dig at everybody OwlFancier posted:It may not last forever but it is diffcult to see how voting for starmer doesn't make it last longer. I mean maybe we shouldn't worry about how they spin it? Right wing shits are going to try to spin everything their way anyway, like when Corbyn was in. Christ that guy had some patience.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:56
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So on a scale of one to enabling act, how worried should I be by the three military helicopters (one Chinook, two I'm not sure about - heavy-looking things that I thought were Merlins but they're retired now) that have flown up the Thames towards Westminster in the last half hour? e: Especially as the only air traffic over central London according to Flightradar is the chopper the BBC and Sky use for aerial shots, currently doing circles around Westminster?
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Sep 22, 2020 16:58
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There's really no point in talking about 'what if Labour but good' because we tried that and it failed, and unless you've got a very clear understanding of why it failed and a very precise plan for how to fix it then it'll fail next time too. Either start a new party or start a movement to make a smaller party (e.g. Green) good instead.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:59
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Comrade Fakename posted:We all love hyperbole, but in this case, actual armed uprising is literally the only other option. So, are you working on that or not? As I said, I'm pretty pessimistic about your chances if you are. A big question is who will throw a ton of money at a new left wing party unless it can solidify around some key issue to differentiate it from the dozen other SWP-alikes and get mass member participation? My Soros checks keep failing to arrive, and nobody wants to buy newspapers now. Militant already tried the break off and form your own party, which ended up as Socialist Alternative, and didn't seem to do much about dragging Labour to the left. Armed uprising doesn't take as many people as you'd think, a group that couldn't field a full rugby team can do a lot of damage if they have a certain level of popular support, but it's messy and there doesn't seem to be much popular support for that kind of thing at the moment. We may be thinking differently when the food runs out though.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:00
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goddamnedtwisto posted:So on a scale of one to enabling act, how worried should I be by the three military helicopters (one Chinook, two I'm not sure about - heavy-looking things that I thought were Merlins but they're retired now) that have flown up the Thames towards Westminster in the last half hour? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-53E_Super_Stallion Those perhaps?
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Sep 22, 2020 17:00
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Gorn Myson posted:Labour make it very easy for me not to vote for them because the people currently in charge have spent the last five years claiming that us on the left are stupid, child-like cultists/thugs and then actively sabotaged a project that we got personally invested in that might have improved this country even the tiniest of fractions in order to run on a "these Tories have some nice ideas actually" campaign. this they absolutely do not want my vote, so why should I give it to them?
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Sep 22, 2020 17:01
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TACD posted:There's really no point in talking about 'what if Labour but good' because we tried that and it failed, and unless you've got a very clear understanding of why it failed and a very precise plan for how to fix it then it'll fail next time too. "You'd better have a very precise plan, now here's my incredibly vague plan."
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Sep 22, 2020 17:09
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Nah not as chonky as that - could have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_SA_330_Puma but also Wiki is contradicting itself on whether or not the Merlin is still in use. Mind you I've seen Russian gunships flying up and down the Thames more than once (allegedly for Farnborough, but we all really know that it was them delivering order to Corbyn) so it's not impossible it was a non-UK Merlin.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:16
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Pesky Splinter posted:It's anecdotal, but it is kinda reassuring in it's own way that these things are being discussed openly among people who rarely pay attention to politics (and when they do it's usually however it's being framed by the tabloids). So like "We're an island!  Everyone is coming in though 50 airports, a few dozen ferry ports, and the tunnel. Boris could have had thermal imagers fitted and blocked flights from risky areas back in early March when we were watching Italy crash in slow motion. Instead he's wrecked the economy and killed thousands."I think this one has legs because everyone is pissed off about it but sometimes groups need pointing the right way (and vaccinated against Boris-did-his-best or conspiracy BS). Speaking of Italy, the second wave has been going on there for a few weeks and *frantic hope* doesn't seem to be causing the same level of deaths as the first.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:26
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Comrade Fakename posted:We all love hyperbole, but in this case, actual armed uprising is literally the only other option. So, are you working on that or not? As I said, I'm pretty pessimistic about your chances if you are. Are you a cop or just sincerely thick? Asking someone about if they are engaging in armed rebellion on a loving public forum. Yeah mate, that's a thing anyone with a brain would do. It's also an absolutely false dichotomy that the only options are limp neoliberal parliamentary politics or armed revolution right now. But go off king
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Sep 22, 2020 17:26
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Sorry for derailing the thread. My opinions of how to engage or not engage with politics are after all just my opinion, not an absolute truth. I have been out and given the dog an extra long walk for his birthday. Vote. Don't vote. Vote for minority parties in the hope they can swing a coalition. Vote for joke parties in protest. Do what you want. I can't be fighting people I'm supposed to be on the same side as. I appreciated the conversation as it's something that hasn't sat that right with me, and sorry if it felt like a pile-on - it is a meaty question that people feel passionate about that isn't talked about too much in my circle of pals, so I liked seeing some different points of view even if it just gave a better shape to what I felt. Pesky Splinter posted:It's anecdotal, but it is kinda reassuring in it's own way that these things are being discussed openly among people who rarely pay attention to politics (and when they do it's usually however it's being framed by the tabloids). It has been dead interesting for me to hear people I thought previously weren't interested in politics laugh at how poo poo Johnson is, what a dickhead he is, how he can't keep track of how many children he has so how can he manage coronavirus etc. One day I will meet someone who voted Tory, but nobody is owning up to it yet. Imagine voting him in because you thought he'd be funny.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:28
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I think the "so what's your plan for starting the revolution" question might be rhetorical.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:33
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I'm not sure how much the first part is supposed to be a joke, but ERS have been running Labour internal elections since OMOV came in and have been running a lot (probably most) of the union elections since the 80s. do you mean formerly ERS, now Civica™ Election Services since 2018????? https://www.civica.com/en-gb/civica-election-services/
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Sep 22, 2020 17:38
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It is difficult also, if we operate on the assumption that starmer is going to win an election, to see how organizing within labour is likely to achieve much. Because it seems pretty clear that he is running the party from the top down, and if he wins that is simply a validation of that approach, that the left can be taken for granted at that the right can hold the leadership and do literally anything they want. Even if we assume that this does not simply serve to blunt labour's "capture" of the under 35's and turn them into non voters as Blair did. Necessarily any attempt by the left to wield power over the party is going to have to take the form of denying them votes, yes? Because again, if people vote for them anyway that's not giving the left power, it's getting the left to give the right power. So you're in the exact same situation of "is it better to not vote labour if you want to advance leftism in british politics" except it's 5-10 years later and everything is worse. What mechanism is there that does not involve working to ensure the electoral defeat of the labour right? Or at least developing the capacity for the left to independently dictate the electoral victory or defeat of the labour party? Because I don't see one. They aren't going to hand over control while they're winning and they aren't going to start running left if they will get votes regardless. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 17:43
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Nah not as chonky as that - could have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_SA_330_Puma but also Wiki is contradicting itself on whether or not the Merlin is still in use. The Merlin is very much not retired and current variants are planned for another decade of service. There's like half a dozen FAA squadrons operating it. Lobster God fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 17:46
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Boris having a normal afternoon https://twitter.com/i/status/1308394044771512323 https://twitter.com/i/status/1308393881793429506
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Sep 22, 2020 17:46
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goddamnedtwisto posted:So on a scale of one to enabling act, how worried should I be by the three military helicopters (one Chinook, two I'm not sure about - heavy-looking things that I thought were Merlins but they're retired now) that have flown up the Thames towards Westminster in the last half hour? Happens about once a month or so, sometimes it's two chinooks, sometimes there's apaches too, probably practicing deployment/evacuation of poo poo in an emergency- you can stuff a lot of squaddies in the back of one at a pinch At least once it was literally an army general on the piss with their staff using it as a taxi tho
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Sep 22, 2020 17:48
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kustomkarkommando posted:The NI app is weird because it quietly sits saying nothing until suddenly giving you an alert at about midnight once a week saying "yes this app does in fact exist" - heard a lot of people complaining about the lack of frequent notifications (as reassurance basically that it is indeed on and checking) Now the app also was responsible for a hug for one four day period where if you had a Samsung Galaxy it massively drained your battery and made the phone super hot. They did fix it, but only after refusing to report on it because they didn't want people deleting the app since it would mess up the tracing part of it. So just he happy that the app just sits in the background using a minor battery drain and not spamming you with the latest infection figures.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:18
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OwlFancier posted:
90% of the Labour Party would support anyone who had a credible plan to win an election, probably 70% would, given two equally credible plans, pick the leftiest. The issue is that the Left lacks any such plan. You can, if you like, define your ideal of socialism as something most people inherently don’t want, and absolutely can’t be persuaded to accept, except perhaps at gunpoint. Or you could not do that. If you don’t, then the only thing standing in the way are a few corrupt Party officials, and what are probably some agents of foreign influence. And if they are things a potential leader really can’t deal with, then they also wouldn’t be capable of running a successful government.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:19
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DesperateDan posted:Happens about once a month or so, sometimes it's two chinooks, sometimes there's apaches too, probably practicing deployment/evacuation of poo poo in an emergency- you can stuff a lot of squaddies in the back of one at a pinch Yeah, they fly along the Thames to Woolwich pretty regularly - I can see them out of my window. The retiring general one was pretty recent as well - he was being flown to The Rag on Pall Mall I think.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:21
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None of which addresses the fact that the party is structured in such a way that starmer does not have to even entertain the possibility of a leadership election until he loses an election and that the party elite, the MPs and the staff, are entirely willing to work against a left wing leader to ensure that any plan they have can not possibly work even if it was initially a good plan, which was the crux of my point. What, then, is the mechanism for overcoming that other than a left wing, independent election deciding force? What does that structure understand except force? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 18:21
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this is completely true, test and trace has always been a failure
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Sep 22, 2020 18:24
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goddamnedtwisto posted:So on a scale of one to enabling act, how worried should I be by the three military helicopters (one Chinook, two I'm not sure about - heavy-looking things that I thought were Merlins but they're retired now) that have flown up the Thames towards Westminster in the last half hour? Merlins are still in use, the Thames is one of the routes the various rotary wings use heavily in training and refreshers.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:25
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Why are the unions still backing Labour? My impression was that Labour was prevented from going full Tory by them having to at least pretend to please the unions, but after the WhatsApp leaks and RLB sacking only Unite seemed to give a poo poo IIRC.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:33
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