The People’s Voice
David Lindsay
The next General Election will certainly result in another hung Parliament. That is now inevitable when a General Election is held across the three polities of England and Wales, of Scotland, and of Northern Ireland.
What matters, then, is to hold the balance of power.
The People’s Voice is in the process of registration as a political party. Look out for any funny business from the powers that be. In order to be up and running for a General Election this year, it will initially be organised on the Leader and supporters model of the Brexit Party. But it will become democratic as quickly as possible.
The People’s Voice has its roots in the 2015 campaign to elect Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party, in the 2016 referendum vote to Leave the European Union, in the campaign to re-elect Corbyn later that year, in the vastly better than expected Labour result at the 2017 General Election, and in the triumph of the Brexit Party at the 2019 European Elections.
It is a party for those who reject the neoliberal economic policy, the identitarian social policy, the neoconservative foreign policy, and yet also the anti-industrial Malthusianism, that most Labour MPs simply take for granted.
The People’s Voice stands for economic equality and for international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends.
That yearning made and kept Corbyn Leader, swung the votes of the areas that decided the EU referendum, deprived Theresa May of her overall majority, and gave the Brexit Party the scale of its victory.
Corbyn has opened up the debate on economic and foreign policy for the first time in a generation. Before the summer of 2015, Britain had an unquestionable State ideology in international affairs and in relation to the architecture of the economy. It was occasionally possible to make a small and probably jocular criticism of the Government. But it was effectively forbidden to criticise the State.
Corbyn has brought onto the platform the voices of opposition in principle to politically chosen austerity and to wars of political choice.
Nevertheless, Corbyn has overlooked his supporters by appointing his enemies to frontbench and other positions. He has permitted a free vote on Syria. He has whipped an abstention on Trident. He has never brought the arming of the Saudi war in Yemen back to the floor of the House of Commons for another vote. His housing and transport policies go nowhere near far enough. He supports gender self-identification, and he sides with neoliberal capitalism on the issues of drugs and prostitution.
He has allowed, and even caused, the dissipation of his initial following among the young male victims of anti-industrial economic policy and of belligerent foreign policy. He wants a Customs Union with the European Union, possibly even at the price of accepting its State Aid rules. He has accepted some of the Government’s baseless and collapsed claims about Salisbury, Amesbury, and Douma.
Corbyn has acted against the social and ethnic cleansing of Labour Haringey, but he has failed to secure justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants in Labour Durham. He has reacted wrongly to the provocative extension of a State Visit to President Trump.
He has accepted a deeply flawed definition of anti-Semitism, and he has failed to prevent the expulsion of distinguished black activists from the Labour Party on trumped-up charges using that definition. He has failed to point out that Pete Willsman had been stating the facts about Israeli Embassy interference, as had been captured on film between Shai Masot and Joan Ryan. He has failed to defend either Chris Williamson or Kelvin Hopkins.
And he has failed to insist that Julian Assange not be extradited to anywhere under any circumstance, which is the wedge issue that is being used to define a pantomime Left that would be acceptable to the official media for the purposes of pretended balance.
The same or similar criticisms may and must be made of such figures as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and it is increasingly clear also Tulsi Gabbard.
Meanwhile, the Brexit Party’s General Election manifesto will have to be acceptable to Nigel Farage. On point after point, such as the privatisation of the National Health Service, that will make it unacceptable to the people who looked up our communities’ wealth and power as midnight struck between 1972 and 1973, who then looked at our own poverty and powerlessness today, and who duly voted first for Brexit and then for the Brexit Party.
The Brexit Party topped the poll in every local authority area here in the North East. A General Election manifesto acceptable to Farage will not do so. The People’s Voice is what is needed instead.
The People’s Voice will contest this constituency of North West Durham, where my candidacy would, at a 2022 General Election, have been 30 years in the making, and where the sitting MP is an identitarian and environmentalist advocate of neoliberal “free movement” and of a second referendum leading to a vote to Remain; she has not said a word in support of Chris Williamson.
The People’s Voice would support the candidacy of George Galloway at Birmingham Yardley, in a city that was made for him and against an opponent who was made for him.
The People’s Voice would support the candidacy of Marc Wadsworth or Jackie Walker at Barking against Margaret Hodge, whose recent claim that the only acceptable racism in Britain today was against Jews was the most racist statement by a mainstream British politician in a very long time.
The People’s Voice would, of course, support the re-election of Chris Williamson at Derby North. And while having no affinity with the SDP’s split from the Labour Party in 1981, we would not be minded to stand candidates against it in its present form, so long as that compliment were returned. Of course, this list need not be exhaustive.
Anyone interested, do please contact [email protected]. Very many thanks.
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The People’s Voice will go the same way as Respect. There are no short cuts to Socialism, join the Labour Party and kick out the Blairites! (As a start…lots more learning to do)!
The political left in our dying western paradigm is just an oxymoron. Today’s so called left side of politics make Charles de Gualle and Fransico Franco look like a Socialist and the later look like a Liberal.
Hell Hitler and Mussolini were more left wing than our present day leaders.
POST SCRIPTUM : Intellectual honesty has entered a new phase of fictional parody
It is sad to see that so many study politics for so long yet never really understand it. Mr Corbyn was elected by Labour Party members who if they along with left-leaning outsiders withdraw support for him will demonstrate their ignorance as they also bring about thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Corbyn has had the committed support of less than 8 labour MPs, sure the members organised and ensured the rest of the Labour Party MPs couldn’t boot him out, but leader of the Labour Party confers little real power upon the holder other than giving him/her a platform from which to negotiate.
Corbyn has done pretty well at that considering he has been dealing with well organised groups committed to diverse interests that mostly number considerably more than 8 MPs.
Whining about the compromises Corbyn has had to make is the epitome of ignorance. From the outside people can try and compare like with like, but all that demonstrates is lack of knowledge of the complex deals and associated trade-offs that are the hallmark of electoral politics.
The whining about the seeming laxness displayed to Hodge is a mirror reflection of the whining remainers have been mounting about the PLP EU position.
Sure Corbyn could have confronted Hodge and the rest of the zionists but all winning would do would be the same as remainers ‘winning’ – the battle won and the war would be lost as the party hemorrhaged votes next GE.
Yep it is wrong and unjust, but that is the nature of reality isn’t it?
So far Corbyn has been succeeding simply because he hasn’t allowed himself to get tied into positions that will cost him so much when he knows that if he can hang in he will make the Hodges, remoaners and all the rest irrelevant as the party is gradually reformed.
It is slow and it is excruciating, but it is likely the only way he can succeed.
If you doubt that he is going to succeed, ask yourself why has the graun and it’s pretend ‘corbynista’ Owen Jones the aged wannabe schoolboy, mounted a new campaign insinuating that Mr Corbyn is a senile old man too weak to lift a spade in his allotment?
The closer it comes to a GE the more desperate and hysterical is the behaviour which oozes outta the neolibs. The tory pick of Bozo the clown as next PM means an election is almost inevitable this year, so the arseholes have kicked off the latest round of deception.
Why is anyone round here giving oxygen to the anti-Corbyn campaign?
I don’t live in England and will never live there again, but I still have a lot of friends and acquaintances there, including a young fella I met last time I visited.
If like many of us you do spend time at the pointy end trying to assist the people who have truly been F++ked by neoliberalism, the odds are high you have met many like, yet different to this chap.
A decent sort of fella, he is in his late twenties and trying to live a life that is hard thanks to his late mother’s addiction to benzos (valium, mogadon and the rest) this bloke who lives in a village not far from Norwich was born with some sort of damage that has impaired his cognitive ability, yet he is hugely artistic. However the epilepsy he has developed in late adolescence means he has to take a cocktail of shit drugs that have stopped the seizures but further impaired cognition.
He has been shunted from arsehole to breakfast by the ‘agencies’ under government contract to ‘help’ him. Lots of interviews ,never a real job the kid has been sanctioned and sanctioned even though he is probably the most genuinely determined jobseeker I have met.
There is no show of the sort of change the world really needs for the foreseeable future, so people who can vote in the UK who do care about the hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens like this chap have a simple choice.
They can preen as they dialect on socialist theory, allowing their prejudices to dismiss Corbyn as an inadequate, or they can decide that as perfection isn’t possible, to support a Corbyn led Labour Party in the knowledge that even if he manages to do bugger-all else, Corbyn will do as much as possible for people such as this bloke.
All the other alternatives including supporting a ‘true socialist movement’ (that will do little more than ensure Labour wins less seats) are going to screw the marginalised britons stupid.
If you can live with the knowledge that poncing for a revolution is going to be paid for by the most vulnerable, and return SFA, then go right ahead.
Thanks for the analysis. If what you say is right, then ofcourse it is more understandable how Corbyn has behaved.
Vote for Corbyn and you get Watson, Hodge, Benn, Bradshaw, Bryant, Phillips, Smee, Ellman and 200 plus others of the same ilk, waving their Israeli flags around and parroting the Board of Deputies talking points like Cheerful Charlie Falconer. That is the reality. There are at most 15 decent MPs in the PLP.
Having ticked Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth and Chris Williamson off the hit list, they are now targeting Seumas Milne. There will be others. The Mossad Office has plenty of shekels left in its war chest.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Labour is a lost cause, a dead end, a waste of time, effort and nervous energy. It isn’t just useless, it is positively harmful. That effort can be used much more productively elsewhere.
Poor old “avuncular Messiah” Corbyn. He’s been judged and found wanting by both sides here. Canoodling with little Greta and loving the White Helmets to Mr Bonney’s “undermining from within” the glorious religion of fervent remain supporters. As if any of it actually mattered. He isn’t PM and is unlikely to become PM. The road back to the middle is much longer than anticipated and is unlikely to be reached using parliamentary democracy.
Corbyn has not just failed to stand up for black activists unfairly accused of anti-semitism ( on a normal definition of anti semitism. There is something very wrong with some recent definitions) He has failed to stand up for LOADS of people unfairly accused of anti semitism. Why has he not stood up for Chris Williamson? Why has he not stood up for himself? !
“An anti-Semite used to mean someone who hated Jews; now it means anyone that Jews hate.” Joe Sobran’s 360º twist of wordplay 🙂 (thanks Seamus 😉 )
Which begs the question, given the above false reality4 humour, how come Margaret Hodge is still in the party ? As she clearly should, but does not know what a Semite is and it is she that is the Anti-Semite and hurling slanderous wild abuse for ‘The Lobby’ and accusations like hers against Corbyn, warrant legal proceedings too, to boot the public comprehension of her scandalous tactics of lies, division & miscomprehension.
Quite welcome!
I agree with only some comments regarding Corbyn in the above . I rejoined the Labour Party in order to vote for him having left like many after criminal Blair invaded Iraq. I also have watched closely as the media have decimated him at every turn, he turns one way they scream antisemitic, he turns another they scream IRA defender irrespective of the fact that it was the English who created the North of Ireland problem in the first place. The lengths they will go to are endless. The bulk of the party are Blairites, he can do nothing right as the media have waged a campaign of extreme abuse [ only fitting word] along with Secret Services or deep state depending on how you see it, Corporate State and from afar, Israel, USA to mention the most obvious.
I no longer blame him for what initially looked liked cowardice but to me now is a balancing act until his opportunity comes, if indeed it does.
The horror story of a UK imploding with an elite [hate that word] at its helm is obvious to anybody with an ear to the ground. We are dying on our feet and our only remaining hope is Jeremy Corbyn, a decent ethical man who I believe is waiting quietly in the wings to go on a major offensive when the sociopaths finally implode.
I love using history as an example to us all because it is our only reliable yardstick to the future. As a people we do not have a history of revolution however the day that changes is coming ever closer as the fabric of everything that held society together is crumbling. Many times over the past 3 or so years I have read revolution in peoples posts.
I am sticking with Corbyn, will do so until it is no longer tenable. I have on many occasions emailed the Labour Party to state that if Corbyn goes, so do I.
I respect your views and would love to be proven wrong, but Corbyn or no Corbyn, Labour is a lost cause and a dead end. Vote Corbyn and you get Watson, Hodge, Ellman, Phillips, Bryant, Bradshaw and the rest of that subhuman scum sucking filth. Why not try The People’s Voice or something similar?
You are quite right about Corbyns fight against the Blairite rump and lets not forget that during the leadership contest Jeremy received the lowest level of support from parliamentary colleagues with just 36 PLP votes compared to Andy Burnham with 68 votes, Yvette Cooper 59 and Liz Kendall 41, while 28 Labour MP votes remained undeclared.
The media vilified Corbyn from day 1.
Corbyn has been accused of being an Islamist, a republican sympathiser, an intelligence asset (for east Europe), an anti-semite, and most recently of suffering a stroke (by ‘impartial civil ‘servants) – lies that have been gleefully recycled by the usual bunch of virtue signallers at the Guardian.
How extraordinary civil servants with no medical qualifications and no access to Corbyn’s health records making bizarre pronouncments about his ability to the lead the country!
Like Assange, like the antisemitism trope, Corbyn, if nothing else, has exposed the depravity at the heart of the British establishment – of course rational observers had already worked out for themselves just how self-serving, how venal they are, but still it is something of an eye-opener watching pack animals turn on anything that might threaten their economic interests.
It goes without saying any socialist faces a near impossible task of reigning in the violent and xenophobic forces that prop up the banking, corporate and military systems and it seems, rhetoric aside, that the best we can hope for (in the short term) are a few small victories against the excesses of austerity – even then our rancid media will label such a fight as left wing extremism, or as a threat to ‘our way of life’.
Totally agree. We need a shift in public ideology in Britain. Until we get that there isnt any base upon which to build a revolution. We have to start it in parliament because the British public are scared of revolution, cultured to believe any other kind of change is not possible and doomed to failure and suffering. We have to work with it. For now. I think Corbyn gives (already has in fact) an oportunity to slowly change how people think about the world and neoliberal capitalism. He is principled , but flawed and not particularly radical . But he holds 2 left wing principles that in my view matter most to the world : anti -war and anti worker exploitation. There is a chance he can get elected. That gives him a platform to speak about these things. Whatever else the Blairites and neoliberals will do to prevent him actually doing anything, we can at least expect him to have the opportunity to speak more as PM. People will have to have to think harder about what kind of world we want. Hes already started that process. If hes PM my greatest hope is simply for him to get on TV more and say what currently can’t be said or wont be reported. Being PM forces the media to report what he says more accurately. Only then can we start to change public opinion and culture. Only then can the revolution begin!
I am very similar to you and totally agree with what you say. The article is worth a read though and does have my sympathy but I will be sticking with JC . When he goes so does my Labour membership if he has not become prime minister that is.
I know he has his faults but J Corbyn is the anti-status quo which explains the horrific daily attacks- The Guardian being one of the worst offenders as Jonathan Cook here points out brilliantly. CP Scott must be turning in his grave especially after the Zimmler rubbish it printed on Sunday
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/05/the-plot-to-keep-jeremy-corbyn-out-of-power/
Apologies, Post below obviously posted to wrong article. Should be at GMO article by Colin Todhunter
Over the next decade, the climate crisis is going to be used as the categorical imperative for the roll out of global GMO and extensive bioengineering and geoengineering as the scientists of neoliberal corporate capitalism propose to take full technocratic control over the weather and nature in order to save us all.
In the face of crisis, GMO offers to greatly enhance the carbon capture of plants and trees on a global scale. There are risks of adopting and applying such technologies but it will be presented as a fait accompli that we have now reached the climate emergency crisis stage where it will be stated that the risk of not rolling out a GMO approach far outweighs the risks of their global roll-out and implementation. There will be no rational alternative apparently than to adopt a portfolio of approaches to dealing with climate change in order to hedge against it. The ground has been prepared for this from at least 2017 as the two articles below show.
https://www.inverse.com/article/26296-bunzl-genetically-modified-plants-geoengineering-climate-change
https://www.inverse.com/article/26181-geoengineering-federal-climate-change-research-funding-carbon
Does Galloway actually plan to run as a member of your party? If so, that could give you a real boost in terms of publicity and name-recognition.
Whether he put up for us or he didn’t, we’d back him.
We already have the ” People’s Voice” here in Scotland. It’s called the SNP ably supported by a growing grass roots movement known as YES. English (UK) establishment governance will soon be consigned to political irrelevance.
The SNP is more pro-austerity than the Tories are.
Mr Lindsey
The challenge for any new party is reversing the brainwashing any political operative has undergone to even engage.
You clearly have swallowed climate change hook, line and sinker, like 99% of the utterly scientifically illiterate political anoraks.
Climate always changes and always will change. It is a term as daft as ‘male sexual arousal’, something else the political morons are trying to outlaw.
Climate varies, but it varies in different ways in different geographies. We are in rain deficit in SE England, whereas US Midwest had severe flooding this spring. Warm arctics can accompany cold mid latitudes (late snowmelt in Northern Midwest and European Alps). Heat waves in France accompany cold spells in Eastern Europe.
Of course if you give the BBC any credibility you only hear half of this. You bow before Ice Age fanatics, you only hear the other half. Put two congregations together and the trench warfare begins. Folks like me who try to make both sets of charlatans be honest get suppressed and moderated out.
Go back to basics without committing adultery if I were you.
Start by assuming scientists have been fiddling the temperature data records to promote their scams and come down like the hounds of hell on them.
Prosecute dozens of BBC mountebanks so for breaking the charter (do the same on Brexit, warmongering and many other subjects too).
Rip up the grant funding schemes and tell scientists how they will serve society, not rip it off. Pension off the charlatans and sack the fraudsters.
Focus on resilience to extreme weather events and scenario plan various climate variations, including a new Grand Solar Minimum (I do not think that is upon us, rather a repetition of 1810 is closer to the mark). Focus on agricultural self-sufficiency, not intellectual wanking about some arbitrary temperature. Focus on flood prevention through holistic understanding of river basins. Do not build houses slap bang in the middle of massive flood plains, unless they are built on stilts. Rivers flood, nature values such floods. Work with nature, not against it…
Most important of all, tell Israelis and Californians that their solutions are for deserts, not for us. Do not be nice to them, have no tolerance for blackmail, especially from racist Zionists. Criminalise Mossad agents using the word antisemitism, as they blackmail and extort on a daily basis. Not to mention strategic promotion of paedophiles for blackmailing. It is evil worthy of a Final Solution for Mossad Agents…..and all racist Jews who support their criminality….
I really wish you’d separate legitimate climate scepticism from your obvious admiration for the Third Reich.
He didn’t say “Jews. He said “racist Jews”.
As George demonstrates, more than adequately:
BillBonney just trolling projection & transference, yet again.. 🙂
Billuminating illiterate failure,
Keep it up Bill,
ich liebe Klartext 😉
von Meister,
Jäger
You do realise that Corbyn campaigned tirelessly for REMAIN?
Also, he was elected as leader the first time without the massive ensuing membership?
Geez between Toynbee of the Groan and this piece I can’t squeeze a ciggy paper.
The present Fart Agers party (is it one yet?) will go the way of the last lot of smelly kippers.
The only important contribution the Peoples whatever can do is to make sure that there is max voter registration and than a massive turnout. Then the peoples vote on the manifestos offered can be decisive.
Oh and if any influence can be exerted NOW to remove the current paratrooped incumbents from candidacies at the next GE.
As for Jezza, his contribution is already historic and indeed biblical (Moses leading to the promised land…), the future Labour leadership is already developing.
Bollocks. He sabotaged it from within.
Is that what all the cool kids are saying around the water cooler at hasbara central?
Maybe, Billy the kid’s hoping for a date with Kabbala Haaretz … ?
Proof kiddo?
Sorry my friend, but your last paragraph leads me to suggest a diagnosis of ‘heroification displacia’ …which is to miscast your own inherent capacity to change onto the un-charismatic fence-sitting anti-leadership of the ‘chosen’ other.
To cast the leader in such devotional and votive light is a precursor of most historical fascism. It is a classic performative powerlessness symptom – identified by Arendt, Reich, Fromm, Deleuze, Guattari, and Becker – among others.
But don’t worry: it is not an incurable condition. I recommend a course including “Escape from Freedom”; “Anti-Oedipus”; and my own personal favourite and humanist classic – Becker’s “Denial of Death”. Enjoy! 😉
Look here BB – are you deliberately missing the point of my allusion to the lost peoples led to their Promised land after decades of false idol worshipping by an aged beardy who than doesn’t ultimately cross into it. Did that make Moses a failure?
I also like the irony of the simile/metaphor – if anyone gets it – of the AS accusers.
Put that in your punch card and process it, Bro.
The irony was not that lost on me: the ‘beardy Moses’ is leading the globalist march to climate fascism …under the promisary guise of the ‘net zero’ decarbonised clean-technocracy rising. Or are we really naive enough to believe he declared the Mayday (Mayday) climate emergency on his own initiative, after a sit down with a lost little girl?
Because that is the level of political naivety that the party Faithfull usually display. And that level of authoritarian obedience really will get us all killed.
The article is broadly correct in its appraisal of Corbyn. I could add more; like his support of the White Helmets. But any long term commenter has had access to that information for two years. But still they will hear no evil about their beardy avuncular Messiah.
That is dangerous, really dangerous. The misplaced trust in country captured neoliberal authoritarianism is becoming an existential threat to all humanity. Which makes its antidote essential reading.
Not only will Corbyn not make it as leader: none of us will make it to the net zero ‘promised land’ of Labour’s capitalist utopia. That is, if we blindly follow – through misplaced obedience to the green neoliberal authoritarian architecture – the globalist ‘climate emergency’ march to fascism. Which, as those who support him will refuse to hear of anything against him, is very probably why he was a corporate chosen one. After all, they are using a 16 year old girl with Aspergers, and a murdered MP – both with ‘untouchable’ status – to cynically character mask the agenda for them. He seems like the perfect choice to me.
He ain’t the Messiah: he is the ‘reverse Moses’ …leading us all in to the desert. Wake up and smell the globalist’s greenwashed odour of imperialism.
Lol – your mighty double speak is hilarious and you have shown your true motives. Consider yourself busted.
‘For god sakes GO ‘ raved Cameron (why??) as he went to get his seat at the table as his reward.
‘GO!’ Cried the chickencoupers on the day of the referendum result as they coordinated an hourly resignation.
‘For pitys sake GO’ cried Smiths of various sorts as they chickencouped to remove him within his first term! And FAILED.
‘Go’ the machine calculated and Trezza was forced to have an unscheduled election as his popularity grew hoping to drown him in their fast dwindling 20 point lead with a mere few weeks of ‘balanced’ msm reporting, even with the murderous terrorist atrocities to cut short campaign time; and the insurance salesmans brexit call centres redeployed; and the 20 page supplements of ‘terrorist lover’ newspapers. They FAILED! Lols.
‘Fucking racist and antisemite!’ screached Hodge at him behind the Speakers Chair. ‘Why won’t you GO!!’ ‘You know it was a joke’ begged Beckett. G0!!!!
The neoliberal con artistes Humpty Dumpty PlooPers , the real bed fellows of the nasty party, just can’t seem to pull themselves together to regain their perch as the other cheek if tge same ribber baron arse.
Any number of provocations and mass murders from the weekly Gaza murders, to Venezuelan coup attempts , to Saudi clothed British forces murdering, to Skripalgatery, to …. endless full spectrum identity politics … PLoopPer splitters … LFI directed back stabbers et Watson too! etc etc etc to get a stumble out of the leaderships unstoppable march to freedom back to the future guaranteed by the post war social democratic covenant.
So and then, there is YOU, little big bro, YOU, and your soulchums of the 77th and your lack of integrity initiatives here, you almost machine speakery.
Sorry ain’t buying.
You may hook some easy suckers with your institutionalised statecraft around here – but not many.
Ever wondered if the world is more complicated and disordered than you think? Maybe you are just paranoid? Just a thought.
What attitude does The People’s Voice have to perpetual economic growth?
Toby:
I think the phrase “anti-industrial Malthusianism” says it all?
David has had articles hosted here that venerate “dominion”, (science fiction) technology, and the old industrialisation cachet – harking back to post-war military Keynesianism, the welfare state, and organised labour …unionised to curtail the worst excesses of capitalist exploitation. In other words, he is a socialist democratic dreamer.
If we take British Steel as a case, and set it against the global market where Trump is desperately trying to keep his political industrial base watered …slapping huge tariffs on imported steel (400% on Vietnamese imports) …and still his major mills are being mothballed and set to idle. The global economy is hugely over-capacititised, over-producing, and under-utilised.
Not just steel, but since China finished over-developing it’s built environment with huge infrastructure and public works campaigns (funded by debt, which still has to be serviced …which will be “painful” even in the PBoC’s euphemistic parlance) in circa 2015 …the whole global commodities market has been nosediving. As is just about every economic metric and real market indicator – except the stock market, and faked employment and GDP figures.
It appears us “anti-industrial Malthusians” have real world econometrics and physical science (thermodynamics, entropy, EROI, depletion, and limits of growth) on our side. Which makes our foundational epistemological proposition about the impossibility of limitless growth within a finite system axiomatic. Not that many seem to be able to accept.
So, I broadly endorse David’s new position and People’s Voice campaign. I’m glad he has seen the light on Corbyn. I wonder if BB shed any of that light, as he did not seem to realise that Corbyn had endorsed his parties ‘extradition’ letter abandoning Julian …but I pointed it out? Now he just has to see the light on environmentalism.
We can dream of a contemporary neo-Keynesian re-industrialisation and social democratic amelioration of neoliberalism …but it has no real world application. In the real world, capitalism has ended …but is now in an unsustainable ‘extend and pretend’ phase – extended with massive credit stimulus of rate cuts (below zero?) and liquidity – aka QE. There is no Plan B. The over-creation of fiat capital – which is issued as debt claim on future resources and labour – will imminently (within the next few years) render capital worthless and meaningless.
The real People’s Voice needs to adjust to this. Otherwise, the relations of production will be ossified as the relations of rule – post-production and post-capital …which is the true nature of the technocratic corporate fascism being assembled as a top-down administrative coup and elected dictatorship …Wolin’s ‘inverted totalitarianism’. The wolf in the green neoliberal Zeitgeist consensual sheep’s clothing.
It seems to me that ecology and environmentalism – rather than being demonised as ‘green fascism’ – are our only hope. Which makes distinguishing the right and wrong (greenwashed neoliberal) shades of green an existential necessity.
Dualism adjusted for ecology – that is the individuated set, not as independent, but as interdependent within the whole (Koestler’s ‘holonic’ and ‘holarchy’ of non-privileged, non-entitled, non-hierarchic (dynamic and organic) …or ‘rhizomatic’ networks of processual interbeing). Which as a political neo-New Left entity seems to be limited to the confines of my overactive imagination
It did rather catch my eye!
I’ve long thought that any ism – not that I’m for any ideology – that does not address bio-physical limits and good science is simply an ineffective, ill-fitting form of capitalism doomed to fail more quickly than its Big Daddy.
It did rather catch my eye!
I’ve long thought that any recent ism – not that I’m a fan of any ideology – that does not take biophysical limits seriously and fails to adopt a truly open, scientific, real-world approach will end up as an ill-fitting, ineffective version of capitalism doomed to fail that bit quicker than its Big Daddy progenitor. Money must first be ‘demoted’ to public good (perhaps as advocated by the Chartists as you suggest below) such that environment, community, health, etc., can drive decision making, and not so-called ‘free markets’.
(I posted this about 90 minutes ago. So if this comment appears twice, my apologies.)
There could be a lot of mileage in this, even if no seats are won.
UK politics are increasingly turbulent and unstable.
The authority and credibility of established elites and the power structures and MSM that sustain them are dwindling away rapidly.
What was inconceivable yesterday may be inevitable tomorrow.
The priority has to be to smash the two main parties completely, Tories and Labour.
This may be attainable.
A recent poll puts the 4 leading parties, Tories, Brexit, Liberals, Labour in rough balance, eaxh with 18-24%, Labour 4th.
Bojo and the EU issue will destroy the Tories over the next 4 months.
The EU, the Blairites and the anti Corbyn smears will destroy Labour over the same period. God willing.
The Liberals have never been more than a joke party, a bucket to spit in.
If there is some kind of resolution to Brexit, the Brexit party will implode like UKIP.
There is a vacuum to be filled.
Expect to see plenty of Deep State shenanigans over the next few months – maybe even war as a diversion.
There is massive potential for a party which like America has a candidate which presents and explains carefully how foreign policy is key to everything else. For example if we don’t have a foreign policy based mutual respect and international law, BREXIT, health and education , climate
Change won t matter because none of us will be around otherwise. A party non- ideological to sort out the grave mess we are in and to lock up the war criminals. Yes, America has not yet woken up to the fact there is one candidate who fits the bill partly because she has little airtime. But it takes something like one shock to the system to change the whole political landscape. Keep positive- think of the narratives which have crumbled lately. And I wonder if this Soros anti war think tank is some parts of the warmongering elite jumping ship because they see a sea change. Perhaps not, but either way they are worried.
That’s exactly what I suspect. After all, nothing good comes from Soros or the Kochs.
In my opinion a new left Party would assist the Tories, as the first past the post system means that you would just take votes from Labour. No past Labour leader has had to deal with relentless divisive attacks from as many directions as Corbyn. He not only has foreign governments (Israel and now the USA) trying to subvert and divide the Labor Party and to label Corbyn and the Party as anti Semitic. There are also ongoing attacks from the Blairites and a relentless barrage of attacks on him by all of the media including the BBC.
The Tories are a normal adversary but that they have been using taxpayers money to pay the Deep State and military intelligence units like Statecraft to undermine him because of his opposition to their warmongering and efforts to keep a ruling class in control of the UK.
To top it off Labor voters are regionally split on leaving the EU so its a lose lose issue for him.
The best way to achieve the outcomes that will prevent full scale privatisation is to get behind him and help stave off the desperate attacks on him, not to create more division. Sure you will not create a huge revolution but with a Labor Government you can rebuild the country and prevent the UK from slipping further under the control of the Lunatics at the Pentagon and Britains own Deep State controllers.
Jim …WAKE UP!
You can either consent to neoliberalism, or you can consent to neoliberalism. And whether you consent to neoliberalism or neoliberalism …you get neoliberalism.
An enlightened, politically astute, and strategising electorate could actually effect change – non-violently, legally and constitutionally – if and when we get educated and motivated to do so. We have the constitutional right to redress. We can petition the Crown (not the sitting tenant, the Queen) …and if the Crown will not respond …we can change them (for which there is adequate legal and historical precedence). We can form a new Chartist movement, curb the statute-state tyranny of Parliamentary elected dictatorships, revers depoliticisation and de-sovereigntisation, form strategic alignments and people’s assemblies (and not at the bidding of capital – re: the XR psyop), use targeted industrial actions and limited boycotts of key capitalist resources, withdraw consent on a limited basis as a warning …
…the non-violent ‘People’s Playbook’ is overfull and brimming with stategies …not limited to polite recuperated astroturf social movements (like XR ‘climate rebellions’) …that all can begin just as soon as we stop thinking one-dimensionally …..Bah, bah …must vote …bah, must vote …
…which is to vote for the imaginary constituency legitimating neoliberalism.
“ A recent poll…” The recent poll was by YouGov which has consistently put Labour behind in the last 10 polls whilst the others have placed Labour ahead. A recent polls by other polling companies have placed Labour in front. Polls are as accurate as Mystic Megs forecasts and should be treated with extreme caution as : Cameron, Clinton and May found to their cost.
yougov is a tory company set up to guide public opinion, not gauge it.
Absolutely, you are better off reading your tea leaves!
You’re quite right but I think there could be a rough balance nonetheless.