Corbyn’s ‘Principled Populism’ Defies Demographic Divide
Labour Leader’s movement is disrupting traditional Labour/Tory voting status quo
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead
Despite being victim to the longest continuous smear campaign in UK media history, Corbyn’s untiring principles to make Britain fairer, sees Labour gain momentum across class and geographic boundaries, as election fever engulfs the nation.
For someone who’s driven by a resolute commitment to lift the poorest in society out of poverty and make humanity more equal, it’s confounding how the mainstream media continuously paint Jeremy Corbyn as a betrayer of the working class.
Though what is less surprising is why the corporate media mercilessly persist in denouncing Corbyn as a working-class traitor.
The Labour leader has never made his contempt of the ruling class secret. In June this year, when Labour won the Peterborough by-election, Corbyn, as The Canary reported, “smashed the ruling class in an invigorating victory speech.”
“Bring it on. We are ready for a general election at any time… Britain will not be a country that in one year alone has handed 50 billion pounds to the tiny minority of very rich people. Instead, we’ll be a country that cares for all,” Corbyn told the people of Peterborough.
The Labour leader doesn’t refrain in announcing plans to implement a radically different approach to taxation, one which targets the heart of inequality by raising corporation tax and that of the top 5% of earners.
Through a fairer taxation system, Labour plans to properly fund rapidly deteriorating vital public services, like the NHS, education and welfare benefits.
Given that control of the UK media is concentrated in the hands of several giant corporations, it’s no wonder that the British press is quick to condemn Corbyn at every possible opportunity, including labelling him as a ‘betrayer’ of the working class.
Despite the media’s attempts to belittle and chastise Corbyn, the mood in Britain in the run-up to the election seems to be shifting Corbyn’s way.
Tired of Johnson’s lies and torturous Trump-like behaviour and Rees-Mogg’s shamefully insulting comments about the Grenfell Tower victims, support for the honest, principled and ‘straight-talking’ Labour leader seems to be gaining momentum, with both working- and middle-class supporters giving Corbyn their backing.
Like the dismal picture the polls forecast for Labour when Theresa May called an election in 2017, which the right-wing tabloids splashed across their front pages, the pollsters weren’t too sanguine of a Labour win when Johnson goaded Corbyn to “man up” and agree to a general election several weeks ago.
In typical Corbyn fashion, the Labour leader didn’t flinch. He coolly accomplished what he’d mapped out from the start, to have the possibility of a no-deal Brexit completely ruled out before agreeing to take the country to the polling stations for a snap general election.
With election campaigns now in full swing, the polls that predicted a Labour washout are beginning to change direction.
And, as the election mood begins to roll Corbyn’s way, it’s the Tories that are starting to flinch.
In Wales, a YouGov poll gives Labour a one-point lead over the Tories, a swing of four points, and in London, senior Conservatives, including Ian Duncan Smith and Zac Goldsmith, face being knocked off their seats in a closely run three-party race with Labour and the Lib Dems.
Even the Corbyn-loathing Sun had to admit predictions are showing the Labour leader is “creeping up behind” Johnson and beginning to “make inroads” on the Tories.
Adding to the Conservatives’ unease, is the growing line of high-profile figures announcing their support for Corbyn.
Sean Bean is the latest actor to pronounce he’ll be backing Labour. The actor, who grew up in a two-bedroom council house in a working-class suburb of Sheffield and is famed for his broad northern accent, says he supports Corbyn for “sticking up” for the working class and talking “a lot of sense.”
“He’s sticking up for the working-class man and its’s time we heard that voice again,” Bean said.
Another prominent actor who’s vocal in his support of Corbyn is Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe’s roots are working class. His father was brought up in a “very working class” Protestant family in Banbridge, Country Down, Northern Ireland.
Like Bean, despite his wealth and global renown, Radcliffe supports Labour and its left-wing mantra, admitting he admires Corbyn’s principles.
“I feel like this show of sincerity by a man who has been around long enough and stuck to his beliefs long enough that he knows them and doesn’t have to be scripted is what is making people sit up and get excited. It is great,” Radcliffe told the Big Issue.
Though the high-profile figure that created the most surprise for endorsing Corbyn, is Rupert Murdoch.
Similar to Bean and Radcliffe’s admiration of Corbyn’s untiring convictions, during the 2015 Labour leadership contest, Murdoch admitted that Corbyn is likely to win, as he was the only candidate who “believes in anything.”
While worlds apart in their views and aspirations, Corbyn and Murdoch aren’t so different in their contempt for traditional ruling class systems and indefatigable values, characteristics of Corbyn that Murdoch obviously admires.
Noting the similarities between Corbyn and Murdoch, in 2017, Toby Young, associate editor of The Spectator, wrote a piece on ‘How Rupert Murdoch made Jeremy Corbyn.’
“They share a visceral contempt for the English class system and the sclerotic institutions that underpin it,” wrote Young.
By spotting parallels between Corbyn and Murdoch, namely how Murdoch’s embracement of populism created a winning brand for the Sun by giving people what they wanted is comparable to Corbyn’s reliance on a populist movement and abandonment of the “fiscal prudence that hamstrung his predecessors and promises to spend, spend, spend,” has, for Young, meant he now appreciates Corbyn’s appeal.
“I’m a huge fan of the Sun. I love the fact it’s constantly cocking a snook at puritanical, liberal killjoys. But now I’ve seen this play, and spotted the similarities between Murdoch and Corbyn, my world has been turned upside down. I am finally beginning to understand the Labour leader’s appeal,” Young concludes.
It could be argued that this revolt from the ruling class system, which, unlike Boris Johnson and Donald Trump’s boorish populist tactics, is principled, genteel, calm and driven by the quest for greater equality, is what led to Corbyn’s rising level of support in the last election and, seemingly, in the forthcoming December election.
By clinging onto unwavering principles to make Britain fairer for all, Corbyn is garnering support from people of all social classes, locations and demographics and defying the traditional Labour/Tory voting class status quo.
The affluent middle classes, branded ‘Champaign Socialists” for their clichéd love for popping Champagne corks while preaching their support for socialism, are not holding back in sharing their admiration of Corbyn.
Rebecca, a former headteacher who left London to live in East Sussex several years ago, shared her reasons for supporting Corbyn.
“Since leaving the London ‘bubble’, I can now see the detrimental effect nine years of Tory government has had on the country. I would gladly pay the greater tax imposed on higher earners to see improvements to public services. Corbyn’s the only one who stands by his principles. He’s definitely got my vote,” said Rebecca.
And it’s not just southerners showing their support for Corbyn and Labour. In the north, where the Tory press urge for a Tory victory, breaking the so-called “red wall” and snatching seats from Labour in Brexit-supporting northern towns, Labour voters have been braving the rain and heading out in their droves to show the Labour leader their support on his recent visit to the northern counties.
Like the people of the south, Corbyn-backing northerners share their love of the Labour leader’s principles and his tenacious push for equality.
As Jacqueline Taylor, an art student at the University of Salford, who says the vibe among the students is decidedly pro-Corbyn, commented:
I’m voting for Corbyn because I believe in a better society for all, not just the privileged. With Jeremy leading the country there will be hope for every single person.”
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a freelance journalist and founder of copywriting specialists PW Copy. Gabrielle loves to research and write stories related to equality, social and economic justice, environmental issues and human rights. You can reach Gabrielle on Twitter @GabsP78.
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as I browsed this article, something odd took effect- I felt a stimulating sensation envelope me and was surrounded by a rosy tinted radiance . Thankfully, I recognise an illusion when I see one – so directly after reading, and to outfox this fox, I raised up and checked myself in the mirror – There it was, and though caught in the act and image speedily fading, was I expected, a poor sad but seemingly content thing in a dreamy state of absence, twisted in gaze and dense as a wiped void…in all, it gave me the impression of beng quite mad….As you can tell, even though this was a temporary experience, was indeed a troubling one, so I gave myself a big slap in the face, and promised Never again (even under experimental conditions) to allow such prattle fo fondle my senses so freely, not even for a second….but could You imagine – that there are those, who spend their lives feeding off these distortions, perhaps becoming fixed in them, without even realizing.
No apologies for the length of this comment. ———————————————————- What the GE is not about is “Brexit” Thats the red herring. With Doris, we get sold of to the US Corporatocracy, Nigella, the same. With Swineson, we stay with our present masters, the EU, (EUphemism for the Fourth Reich, (an aristo-corporate structure from its from its inception). With Corbyn, (bless his cotton socks, even if he is punch-drunk), we can still put the brakes on the runaway train, the total demolition of NHS, and put a few fiat shillings in the pockets of the rising masses of the poverty stricken. At best, a tactical vote; since ‘parliament’ abrogated its lawful authority on that fateful day in 1972; Sooo, since then we have been pulling our forelock to a simulacre of the real parliament, which is presently stuffed full with pin-head politicos, (actual or wannabe millionaires); we have a largely privatised police, judicial, security, council, employment, medical, (add your own). To whit: We, the constituents, Yer actual builders of our Constitution, (IE, every man Jack and Jill present on the sovereign soil of present day Britain), are considered by the PTSB, as human resources, cash cows, to profit from and then discard after sell-by date. Public governance in the hands of private for profit interests? Contradiction in terms in there somewhere. Twixt rock and a hard place I choose to pose my ineffectual mark on the Jezz, even knowing the Remainer noise going on behind his back. F*ck ’em, I was not born to blindly obey. F*ck ’em again, I will not allow the parasites to steal the food off my plate, nor pollute the soil; with their fracking and Roundup, their weapons grade 5g, their imperial wars abroad, nor do I submit to arbitary arrest, incarceration, torture, etc. etc. etc. etc. EU, (Roman), law is like having a stick poking me repeatedly in the back pushing me to participate in ignoble acts; whereas our pluri-millennial Constitution re-affirmed, again and again, since time out of mind, backed up with a mega shopping list of “Maxims of Law”, (also pluri-millenial), {distilled from ponderings of our Ancient illuminnaries, our wise forefathers}. Even ever so abused and injured as it is, our tribe-based society,is still alive, Parliament did NOT exist in 1215, and if Magna Carta had not have been sealed with the Royal seal, we would be governed today by a (royal) Autocracy, There would be no parliament. —– I must not omit from my rant, ladies and gentlemen, the awesome Article 61 of Magna Carta,(1215), by which, instrument we can regain control over our wayward overlords, the one and only ‘in your face’ Article 61 (1215), {beware of counterfeits}, as follows :- “Since, moveover, for God and the amendment of our kingdom and for the better allaying of the quarrel that has arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these concessions, desirous that they should enjoy them in complete and firm endurance forever, we give and grant to them the underwritten security, namely, that the barons choose five and twenty barons of the kingdom, whomsoever they will, who shall be bound with all their might, to observe and hold, and cause to be observed, the peace and liberties we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present Charter, so that if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs or any one of our officers, shall in anything be at fault towards anyone, or shall have broken any one of the articles of this peace or of this security, and the offense be notified to four barons of the foresaid five and twenty, the said four barons shall repair to us (or our justiciar, if we are out of the realm) and, laying the transgression before us, petition to have that transgression redressed without delay. And if we shall not have corrected the transgression (or, in the event of our being out of the realm, if our justiciar shall not have corrected it) within forty days, reckoning from the time it has been intimated to us (or to our justiciar, if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid shall refer that matter to the rest of the five and twenty barons, and those five and twenty barons shall, together with the community of the whole realm, distrain and distress us in all possible ways, namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other way they can, until redress has been obtained as they deem fit, saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our queen and children; and when redress has been obtained, they shall resume their old relations towards us. And let whoever in the country desires it, swear to obey the orders of the said five and twenty barons for the execution of all the aforesaid matters, and along with them, to molest us to the utmost of his power; and we publicly and freely grant leave to everyone who wishes to swear, and we shall never forbid anyone to swear. All those, moveover, in the land who of themselves and of their own accord are unwilling to swear to the twenty five to help them in constraining and molesting us, we shall by our command compel the same to swear to the effect foresaid. And if any one of the five and twenty barons shall have died or departed from the land, or be incapacitated in any other manner which would prevent the foresaid provisions being carried out, those of the said twenty five barons who are left shall choose another in his place according to their own judgment, and he shall be sworn in the same way as the others. Further, in all matters, the execution of which is entrusted,to these twenty five barons, if perchance these twenty five are present and disagree about anything, or if some of them, after being summoned, are unwilling or unable to be present, that which the majority of those present ordain or command shall be held as fixed and established, exactly as if the whole twenty five had concurred in this; and the said twenty five shall swear that they will faithfully observe all that is aforesaid, and cause it to be observed with all their might. And we shall procure nothing from anyone, directly or indirectly, whereby any part of these concessions and liberties might be revoked or diminished; and if any such things has been procured, let it be void and null, and we shall never use it personally or by another.” ——————————————— ————————————————————————————Arts. 62 and 63 of same Treaty. “62. And all the will, hatreds, and bitterness that have arisen between us and our men, clergy and lay, from the date of the quarrel, we have completely remitted and pardoned to everyone. Moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said quarrel, from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the restoration of peace, we have fully remitted to all, both clergy and laymen, and completely forgiven, as far as pertains to us. And on this head, we have caused to be made for them letters testimonial patent of the lord Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, of the lord Henry, archbishop of Dublin, of the bishops aforesaid, and of Master Pandulf as touching this security and the concessions aforesaid.
63. Wherefore we will and firmly order that the English Church be free, and that the men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly, for themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all respects and in all places forever, as is aforesaid. An oath, moreover, has been taken, as well on our part as on the art of the barons, that all these conditions aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without evil intent.
Given under our hand – the above named and many others being witnesses – in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.” ——————————————————————————–
More good tidings with Art 39, “No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land”, —————————————————————————— ———————————————————————————————————————and Art 40. “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice”.
————————————————————————————————————- Art 49. “We will immediately restore all hostages and charters delivered to us by Englishmen, as sureties of the peace of faithful service”. This Art could get JA out of Belmarsh ——————————————————————————– ——————————————————————-The Crown’s duty towards the subject,(excerpt). Essential duties imposed by the coronation oath are:
* (1) to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the dominions etc belonging or pertaining to them according to their respective laws and customs;
* (2) to cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all judgments, to the monarch’s power;
* (3) to maintain the laws of god, the true profession of the Gospel, and the protestant reformed religion established by law, to the utmost of the Sovereign’s power.———————————————————————————– ————————————————————————– From the Bill of Rights (1688/89), concerning Supremacy.
“I A B doe sweare That I doe from my Heart Abhorr, Detest and Abjure as Impious and Hereticall this damnable Doctrine and Position That Princes Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever. And I doe declare That noe Forreigne Prince Person Prelate, State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authoritie Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall within this Realme Soe helpe me God.” Seems clear enough to me. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–So, for the life of me I do not understand why so many of the commentors areprojecting gobbledy-gook, discussing angels on pinheads, or simply “Stompingonfucktards”; when a little reading and reflection will set you on the Lawful path of remedy and subsequent healing. –Time I took a break, my dyslexic element is kicking in. Love to all, see you on the barricades, E.
Pardon moi for the lenght.
Ah…. GoreBin, yeah, let the manure flow free, and somehow I dont trust that man for an split second, not an iota more than Boris the Bastard, both are fake, labour, huh, dont make me laugh.
The green scam, we have had it for some years, and it was promissed to be an revolutio, and what actually happened, nothing.
But, they have morphed into taxing us for everything, windmills are scams, solar panels so bad its just slightly above the scam line, useless of course unless you just want light in your cabin, forget everything else unless it becomes better. And again the problem isnt what we all agrees upon, doing something, but the cap between doing something, to acutal have something better or greener is not been closed, at all, and the only remedie they have is reducing, reducing the use of cars, eh…. due to the even more insane CO2 scam, to shooting the power bills to high heaven for us to have an uh…. reson to cutt down on our power consumptions, after years of pimping wooden fire stoves to apternative like woood briks and despite that, most moder houses are even more electical dependent than an old one, but then any home owner is stuck between the rock and an hard place, because we dont have good alternatives, unless of course you live by the equatore.
Do you understand, an own cant be more power eh….. neutral, we need them to cock our meals, but due to the AGW scam, we subsedizing windmills, and other useless things, and that have not reduced much if anything, because its heavily depenndent upon much higher prices to it can be eh…… sustaiable, do you understand this isnt an long term solution, its an shot term political cluster f…. and nothing else.
What pisses me off is how deeply we are been hadded, because of propaganda that is detached completelly from reality, 6 big oil tankers pumps out more shit than 750 million cars, and how then am I the bad one when I have an diesel car, yeah, just take an look on the side of an highway, do it look like plants are dying, does it, huh.
No.
Second, self determination, if there is anything that scares the living daylight out of the nuevo ritch and shameless, its that, and I take Norway as One ex. just to make shure you actually undestand what I mean with that and how it have destroyed our nation and crashed the land, when we have in the 70s smal vilages all along the cost line, fishing in smal crafts, delivering it to smal local fisherys for handling and making products, the fish is delivered in Paris centrum within 24 h. and never was an problem and that transport sectore also generated a lot of people to have an full time job, etc, to transp/logistic corps, and all this have since then gone down the drain, our costline is getting darker and darker, all this have been replaced with massive sea faring vessels, and they suck much more resources, since they can go futher and have equimpents that can take out much more, with fewer people, and that have also generated an self forfilling prophecy where they since it much more costly have demanded larger parts of the anual quota, and that have left the traditional fleet with lesser and lesser do simple generate what they need to survive. And if that isnt enough, now we have something much, much worse, an ind. that is killing and wiping out the wild fishes, destetificate entrie coustal regions with just an decade ago you could go out and throw out an angle and you would get a fish, this days are gone, from Skagerak to the North Ice sea, dead, dead, dead, and that ind. is Fishfarms, polution, eviriomental problems since its heavy medicated, lices, etc to other sicknesses witch is wiping out the natural salmons, our rivers are packed with sick fishfarm escapers, and nobody do anything because oit generate even more cash, some few benefits, while our entire costline is dying.
Its sound bad dont it, and I havent even spoken about the f…. Camchatka Crab aka King crabs, witch is an natural bloody catatstophe of bilbical proportions and so numerous it is killing whats left, entire regions is covered with this creeps, and on top of it if you pick one up, they fine you with an ticket of 500 quids, 5000 Kr and that for something that is crawling everywhere and all that to protect an tiny fleet of fishermen and to keep the price high.
I dont trust anyone of them, in Norway the Gov is so corrupt its mind boggling and they lie about everything, and the use of foreign corps that is alowed to undermine the Norwegians workers is now everywhere, and the young ones dont even bother to be educated since its not even jobs.
They arent there, since the level of pay is so bad you cant live of it, but somebody makes an killing, and that is where we stand to day, how to deal wiith it, and instead of listening to some few that whines about comunism or socialism, they simplt dont bother to be honest, the neo-liberalism, the narrowing of accses to our natural resources witch could benefit an much larger part of our population, and the benfits keept local, it dont happen, and that is where we stand to day and in Norway as we speak they have started to realise the scope of the lies, the desite, flatout undermining and so on, is making people angry.
The issues mentioned is just few, it can be made to be about much more but I end it here.
Untill they indeed have an alternative energy source, we have to go that way, and that isnt happening at all, thats why I find the present AGW cults high prests to be simply scammers, because its about reducing, to what, nothing, stone age.
And end the wars, witch created the systemic imballance we all face to day, the imperialism of nations, large corps crashing poor countrys, the banking ind complex.
If we dont do anything with this, I am afraid the future looks dark.
And nothing substancial will happen apart from that we all will be much more misserable and poorer.
Yeah, and I have driven thru regions as Shefield, it was then, 20 years ago an depresing sight and I dont know how its to day, but this coal mines where deliberatly targeted, because of the Tacherism and their invention of the CO2 scam, to bolster the Nukes power ind. and so on, and now, they are been fired up again because of the crappy fuctional level of the so called alternatives arent working, and by the way, if there is an new word you should know about, its the Marooner Minimum, thats where we are going.
The winters are coming back, but now they call it, climate change, yeah, to much heat causes colder winters, right.
To an cynical old f…. like me, the Gorebins and the Torys are just two sides of the same coin, and talks about things that have marginal effects, like the internett, jesus, but dont tuch issues that could have an impack on Britain as whole.
They simply take is for been idiots.
And thats where we stand to day.
Brexit isnt the problem, the problem is nothing will change, we need change, we need an revolution.
Take back our land and take away the grip few have over the rest of us.
peace
We forget that they want everybody to have broadband.So I don’t think it would cost that much to be implemented because it is already there.They just need wires that go from it in the street to the house.That will not cost a lot.I think JC’s estimate is way over what it will actually cost.Clever man.
“…Rees-Mogg’s shamefully insulting comments about the Grenfell Tower victims…” This is an amazing judgement. In the comment you are referring to, Rees-Mogg merely suggested that he would flee a burning building. The notion that the suggestion is shamefully insulting is precisely the kind of nonsense the political media elite constantly engage in as a way of diverting attention from serious issues.
As I understand it, Rees-Mogg did not “merely” suggest he would flee a burning building. he is suggesting that he would have disobeyed fire service advice to stay put. If this staying put was the official advice – presumably given by experts – you can understand why people were conflicted over it. The most I can grant Rees-Mogg is that his comment was tactless. It sounds to me as if he was shrugging his shoulders over it as if to say, “Well – the inhabitants brought it on themselves” – the underlying implication being that we can no longer depend on rescue services and that we are on our own.
So as Labours campaign gains momentum and they move to publish the best manifesto offered to voters (since 1945) in my lifetime … a mega spoiler from the BBC to divert attention from the total lack of tory narratuve traction.
‘Newsnight sources said the interview was a result of six months of negotiations with the royal household, with an agreement that there would not be any advance vetting of the questions.
The interview was conducted on Thursday at Buckingham Palace and the BBC has decided to broadcast a special edition of the show at 9pm on Saturday. It was conducted by the lead Newsnight presenter, Emily Maitlis, who promised it would be “no holds barred”.’
Six months! During which they decided which ‘unvetted’ questions.
Suddenly mid election to do the interview and broadcast as a special on Saturday evening!
I’m sure it won’t divert from the election at all!
Grr. I have just about had it with ignoring the DS Mockingbird operation in the msm.
I just found this cracker of a comment in today’s cartoon thread in the Guardian:
It represents just how propagandised some Guardian (alleged) ex-Labour voting readers have become.
I usually ignore what polls say because they’re the perfect mechanism to spread lies and not be held accountable for them, and if they include graphs or pie-charts they’re telling lies to us in pictures.
There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics. Then there’s polls.
I’m not sure whether anyone knows what this election is about? It’s certainly not a populist personality contest as most seem to think. Whatever part of your personality you have projected on Corbyn – the the cost of Boris – that is not even the issue. As the country as a whole seems intent on displaying dutiful behaviourism to authority: whoever you vote for the ‘climate economy’ or ‘green industrial revolution’ – or a version of it – gets in. Are we so drawn into personality pantomimes that we cannot see we are being perception managed for the manufacturing of consent? Apparently not.
So what are we consenting to? Do we even know? Who has fact-checked the major parties pre-manifesto proposals? If not: why not? And who will fact check the published, fully costed proposals? Will they cost them inter-temporally: for all externalities across space and time …as in ‘Full Cost Analysis’ or ‘Lifetime Cycle Analysis’ …or just personality populism analysis?
This election has been billed as “the election that will decide the planet’s future.” Do you know how silly it is that you, most of you that is, will consent to rapid decarbonisation in five years? Without even checking or even researching what you will have legitimated. It is all very well saying I am a ‘disconcerting’ poster: but I have checked my facts. I find it very disconcerting that those who may want to criticise that have not. In case you do not know: this is impossible.
I bet you are wondering where I got my ‘made up’ facts from? The ones about us all being in the global consumer consumption bourgeoisie …of the top 20% of global consumers? And emitters: that accounting for historic consumption – we are the largest per capita polluters on the planet …at six times the world average. If every country globally tried to replicate the UK’s rate of per-capita consumption and broader resource use: the world’s ecosystems would simply collapse. That’s verbatim.
Those facts come straight from the Labour party. LabourGND.uk: to be precise – entirely in line with everything I have said. What is not in line: is the physical impossibility of reducing this to actual zero in five years. But this imaginary impossibility will be given legal-rational legitimation by your consent. Which is more ‘disconcerting’? The uncritical internalism of this preposterous claim via personality populism: or rational critique?
Do you know economies are energy economies that scale 1:1 with bioenergetic consumption? Do you know that well known implementation and transition difficulties – not limited to, but including intermittency – mean that as a rough metric the replacement ratio of renewables is not 1:1, but more like 1:10 …which ignores such factors as impossible battery technology on an affordable scale. Do you know that globally: renewables are not even replacing FFs at all? The amount of renewables can barely keep pace with the exponential increase in demand. Renewables increase: but FFs have to increase to. And if economies scale at 1:1: the only way to decrease from six times the global average to the global average (which may not and probably is not sustainable) – is to decrease the size of the economy by six times. Which is why they want personality populism and not a fully informed debate that focuses on the underlying real issues. And we dutifully comply: and label the dissenting poster as ‘disconcerting’.
What will be disconcerting is that the underlying issues mean that the discrepancy between popularity populism and reality widens exponentially every day. The correction back to reality also widens. When the shit hits the fan will we wish we looked at the real issues: and not indulged in ‘principled populism’ perception management? Or will we blame some otherised voice or group to avoid self-responsibility for fact-checking the claims that we did not even read? They are having you on and the only cure is for everyone to be their own ecological intellectual: a la Gramsci. If we uncritically absorb fantastical claims without even checking what we are obediently consenting to: who on earth else is there to blame? Not me for pointing this out.
The GND is the electorates anomic suicide pact with the green corporate revolution. What is disconcerting is that no one even knows what they are voting for. So engaged are we in the Spectacular distractionism of principled populist personality contests. Pretend and extend to the end without ever checking the viability of fantastical claims. If there is anything more disconcerting than that: I’d like to know.
Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine. I’m beginning to suspect that you just want to be able to say ‘I told you so’ when the shit hits the fan.
And you seem to make an awful lot of assumptions about others. You’re certainly not alone in thinking that the current state of humanity is unsustainable. But your diatribes give the impression that you think your the only one who can see, and that every other person is blind. Perhaps many are just more sanguine about the coming big die off. Anyway, humanity and life will still be around in a thousand years time in one form or another, even if it is just a few surviving outposts here and there, waiting to seed the next epoch.
As to elections, why do you assume that everyone who will vote will be voting with a spring in their step, as if choosing the next big thing. Many, myself included, vote for the least worst deal. What other option is there? Not voting, as you suggest? How does that help? Not voting could be seen as nothing more than having a bit of a sulk, and declaring that you won’t play the game.
If you want to see change, and a change in the group consciousness, you could do worse than at least voting against the Tories. It might not be much, but it is something. It is a step, even if it is a very small step.
You do not seem to able to grasp the enormity of what I am saying. Whoever you vote for: the corporate agenda gets in. The power structure is not as you imagine. Power has been held offshore for most of my life. Democracy is tokenism in return for pacifism. We are merely re-validating a corporate structure that has been illegitimate for my adult life.How far does this have to go before we realise that our obedience is causing this? To actual extinction? That’s just genius, isn’t it?
So who can’t see where this is going yet? The GND came straight from the WEF earlier this year. Have you read Cory Morninstar’s expose of who is behind it?
http://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
And have you read Vanessa Beeley and Whitney Webb’s exposes of the humanitarian regime change front the Jo Cox Foundation? The one Corbyn supports: along with the White Helmets.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/inside-the-humanitarian-regime-change-network-exploiting-jo-coxs-death/248209/
Much the same ‘philanthrocapitalist’ dark money network? Every member of the Labour party got the same email I did in 2016: to collect for the Jo Cox Foundation. A third of that money went to the White Helmets. Three months later they were involved in the murder of 126 children at Rashidin. Corbyn and his supporters did not directly cause this: but they are nevertheless strongly correlated. Everyone knows supporting the White Helmets is morally wrong. How do you get ‘principled populism’ from child murder and the support of NATO proxy jihadis?
Only by the deliberate distortion of reality. And anyone who has posted here longterm has had to avoid my many comments on the matter. For how many other Labour supporters was this a red line? So we are now indulging in a fantasy personality contest where the character of one of the candidates has been severely distorted. And not Boris Johnson.
What was principled about Browder’s Magnitsky act – which was both a lie and a regime change ploy. See Frank’s comment for more examples. All this has to be memory-holed – and politics reduced to pantomime personality politics – where every egregious blemish in Corbyn’s character has been sanitised with ‘principled populist’ narrative construction. And while the Punch and Judy of the least worst candidate goes on: the corporate agenda of the GND gets given legal rational status.
You’ve got me all wrong. No one has bragging rights when the shit hits the fan. I would rather like to stop the worst of the shit hitting the fan. But this will take an uncompromising level of honesty: which is not on display. Everyone knows any support for the White Helmets – let alone actual financial support is wrong …utterly immoral and wrong. Yet Corbyn got a pass: why?
Why did everyone who is advocating vote Labour not walk out of the party in 2016. I did. That would have given us time a to establish a networked international solidarity and universal humanist party against the corporate green revolution. As I am fond of quoting Arundhati Roy: it is over when we stop buying what they have to sell. Ergo: it carries on all the time we buy into it by distorting reality with narrative construction. Do you support child murdering terrorists; regime change; Browders Magnitsky agenda; nuclear weapons; NATO; NATO’s Drang nacht Osten occupation of Eastern Europe …or the corporate GND fronted by Labour. No, then what are you voting for?
It’s impossible to change this in a month: but that is not my fault. We’ve had years to change this and it does not change. That is the brutal uncompromising truth. We’d rather be authoritarian subjects than free: so you can park up the political high horse. Voting got us here. Only withdrawing our obedience en masse can effect any real change. But we have to have a valid alternative to the Capitalist Realism first. And that is the problem: TINA …there is no alternative.
Do you think the corporate green revolution will allow anything but the semblance of freedom or a genuine alternative to capitalist accumulation? A capitalist accumulation John McMurtry calls the ‘Transnational Money Sequence System’. Do you know where the major centre of accumulation for this is: never to be mentioned in an election? I think that is very politically naive to assume anything other than the cosmetic change they want to buy your obedience with. Real change would require too much self-sacrifice and is too radical for most: degrow or die. That is how simple it has become. Let’s see what the fully costed manifesto offers: but if it is eternalist metastatic growthism – then it is only the last option that is on offer.
BTW: I’m not having all the social anomie and destructivism of the corporate system offloaded on me. I’m one of a few that has offered and alternative. An alternative Great Simplification that was much more attractive 40 years ago than it is now. One of my personal great bugbears is that Labour wants to decarbonise housing. Well that is what I have been doing and advocating for 40 years. We can build houses that are carbon neutral and require no heating. If we had done this over the last 40 years: our housing stock would be nearly carbon neutral and all the money and energy we wasted on space heating would have been saved. Ecologically, we would be in a much better place. We can still change if we face reality and decide to act. For that the denialism and distortion has to end and brute uncompromising reality begin. That so many people can memory-hole the inconvenient immoral facts about Corbyn to present a ‘principled populism’ is not a good start.
Ok. But as a month is obviously far to short a timescale to create a mass movement of disobedience, to persuade the necessary numbers to stop buying what they have to sell, and to create a new narrative opposing or replacing the current narrative, what to do with regards to this upcoming election? Opt out and not vote? Or put on a nose peg, and possibly temporary blinkers, and go along with this distorted construction of reality for the purpose of trying to get the best result out of the options we have in this immediate future?
Again, is this next month really a good time, in the UK, to focus on instigating such radical change? As to the ‘immoral facts’ about Corbyn, perhaps we could be a little more forgiving of the man’s shortcomings. I doubt, unlike the Tories, that Corbyn is intentionally immoral or sociopathic, but rather that he is just short sighted with regards to a bigger picture, and that he can make errors of judgement.
I’m not trying to dismiss your many valid points, but surely this next month should, or could, be about a small battle that we have right before us. A person can next month decide to express a rejection of the current narrative by not voting, but I can’t see what that would really achieve. This current election battle gives me an opportunity to vote against Tory rule, and I will be using that opportunity.
And thanks for the links, bookmarked for later reading.
Mass movements will have more freedom to assemble and grow if the Tory party is not in charge. Assuming everyone knows something is assumption. There is an apparatus in the labour party separating Corbyn and the membership it’s corrupt as fuck, and it is likely the membership will prevail in the 3rd attempted coup. The will is in many people to do the right thing. And we* haven’t even started killing their* children yet. Priti Patel appears to be a dangerous ambitious psychopath itching to start quelling rebellion on British streets. Do you really want Hitler in a dominatrix costume as home secretary. *they/your.
BigB, the only way to fight Global Capitalism is through International Socialism. Workers of the World Unite! You are right to be suspicious of Corbyn: a Socialist Leader supporting the White Helmets and denouncing Dr.Assad is dangerous ignorance at best. His denunciation of Putin reveals equal — and much more dangerous — ignorance of world affairs. His failure to purge BLiarites and his total cave-in to Zionazi antisemites in the Party shows alarming weakness in a potential Prime Minister. The most we can hope is that an innate decency will preserve Corbyn from comitting the worst atrocities (at home as well as abroad) of UK regimes under Thatcher, Major, BLiar, Brown, Camoron and May.
Ahh BB – I would have hiven you a turn around the dance floor but it seems you already have a full card.
But i just can’t resist this beauty by you:
“You do not seem to able to grasp the enormity of what I am saying.”
Most of us well aware of the ENORMITY of what you always say.
Lol. I’ll leave it there.
WHAT ARE YOU ON? You make sense but asphyxiate it in baffling equivocational waffle.
Note: no insult intended.
Don’t worry, BigB. Gaia will take care of the big issues. UK Elections are for little Great Britain: only let us regain a fairly decent Welfare Socialism Leader, building council houses, making modest improvements and staying away from Mad Uncle’s imperial wars, as it was under the Two Harolds (MacMillan and Wilson) and I for one shall be content.
To put it plainly, a lot of people don’t give a toss about personalities, green deals or populism. They just want an end to austerity.
“Though the high-profile figure that created the most surprise for endorsing Corbyn, is Rupert Murdoch.”
Surprise? ALARM BELLS, rather. Shades of New Liebour!
OMG yes. “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
The dirty digger moredork will never support the Corbynite Labour policies – they reverse 50 years of his gangsters gains!
But he knows which way the wind is blowing and will want to claim a hand in ‘having called it right – yet again.!
It’s refreshing to read such an uplifting piece on Corbyn. The author’s done well.
I speculated last week that the Tories seem not to have a clue and were either deliberately trying to lose badly or they knew that the votes were stitched up through a rigged ballot so were going to win.
So this is hillarious from Barcly
“Do we want more players in the
@PremierLeague
from Brazil, Argentina or Africa compared to the EU? Or more English qualified players to strengthen the national team
@FA
? What would you rather see? The key opportunity of Brexit is that we will get to decide ”
I think he just got a lot of football supporters to vote against Tories and Brexit going by responses to his tweet – will it survive?
Meanwhile Bobo on his way to another bus escapade gets soft soap callers on the beeb and still manages to make Corbyn’s broadband promise sound like a great idea!
Dom and Dumber every day.
I’m not really interested in people like Bean and Ratcliffe and Emma Thompson and Rowling and Madonna and De Niro and Meryl Streep and so many others. They are entitled to their opinions, however shallow and vacuous. I just object to the notion that they are somehow qualified to tell everybody else what to think and how to vote.
If your not interested in what they have to say, then just don’t listen to them. And I don’t really see how you come to the conclusion that they are telling everybody what to think and how to vote. They are just giving their thoughts and opinions, just like we are here.
I don’t.
But do you still think that they are telling everybody what to think? Or do you accept that they are just voicing an opinion?
If I was famous and had a voice, then I would also probably gob off to the world at large, and give my opinions on any old shit. Why not? But that wouldn’t be ‘telling’ people what to think. It would just be me saying stuff.
As they say, opinions are like arseholes. Everyone’s got one.
Yes, everyone has an opinion, but yours and mine aren’t printed on the front page of the newspapers, or broadcast on the media, and in our celebrity-obsessed culture, the media makes sure we know the opinions of the more vocal of the celebs.
So, for example, we all got to know that Emma Thomson was supporting Extinction Rebellion. In the case of the woke Grauniad, it was met with approval, whereas in the right-wing press, they made much of her alleged hypocrisy in flying the Atlantic to take part in the protest. Either way, we got to hear about it, and there is no doubt that celebs like her want us to know their views.
And when, for example, intellectual rent-a-quote Stephen Fry opines on something, do you think he is not trying to influence us? Of course he is.
They may not tell us how to think, but they have an influence, and they know it, and the media know it.
On the contrary, these actors are using their influence to do just that. Its fine that they are entitled to their opinion but what they are not entitled to do is interfere as “foreign agents ” and influence an election outcome…… wait a minute is that not Russias’ role ?
Besides, with delusional actors like De Niro, what sets his opinions apart from the MSM, especially in US politics ? Its the last thing an uneducated populace really needs during an election campagne is another dim whit telling them how to vote.
Considering that the MSM is so full of lies and spin and propaganda, I can fully understand a person, any person, trying to combat that, and reset the balance. And that’s whether I agree with the person or not.
Nothing that I disagree with there. But outside of that proposed system, people would still be free to voice opinions, and try to sway others thinking. It is what humans do… communicate.
Hilary’s role, shirley?
Want a truly democratic election process ? Then start with electoral reform and further, allow internet voting based on pre-registration. Then sit back and see what happens.
Fraud on a massive scale, that’s what’ll probably happen.
It reads like a PR piece.
This post belongs on YouTube.
Hmm, this piece strikes me as the usual nonsense.
If you want some reality you can try this…
https://youtu.be/2Nwg4e0s2hI?t=1757
This is from last Tuesday’s Richie Allen radio show, featuring Finola Moss, who’s a solicitor. Her autistic daughter was taken by the British state at the age of 18, to be farmed out to big corporations (most of them American) for huge amounts of profit.
Well written. Let’s hope the electorate does see sense.
Re: that Guardian/Observer obsession with so called ”antisemitism” in the Labour Party, dissenting and prominent Jewish Labour supporters wrote to The Observer following Jonathan Friedland’s awful piece last week. I don’t know that their letter has been published. There were a number of factual errors in Friedland’s piece – it seems that actual facts and truth are immaterial to serving the agenda of smearing Jeremy Corbyn. At some point, it must become necessary to take legal action against such poison-pen pushers. And, there are a number of prominent Jews who do support Labour (the lovely Michael Rosen to mention but one) and not only that but my area received a welcome offer of dozens of Jewish canvassers and volunteers to help swing a marginal as their area is oversubscribed with volunteers! And yes, I too seem to be pre-moderated and discussion CIF is always closed.
The Guardian, where facts are sacred.*
*exceptions may apply
Its FrEEdland btw – you may get accused of AS or worse for trying to make him sound like a foreigner 😇
Hasn’t peeped a squeak since his shitty gaslighting and dodgy accusation of a possible Labour candidate last week.
It does seem that Ios/ii are belatedly stopping their illegal political attacks – the 77th are being stood down.
There will be a whole lot of ‘new’ accounts on the Groan, twitter, here etc directly via CCO instead for the next week or so.
Anyone you know across the country must be urged to register before the deadline, especially in the countryside forgotten towns and villages!
Having now read the article…
Blimey, it’s quite an odd feeling reading of Toby Young coming out for Corbyn. I’m not sure how valid the Murdoch and Corbyn comparisons are, but I’ll have to think on it. Claiming the Sun on the side of the good is a bit hard to swallow. I can see the ‘populism’ reasoning, but is that enough? I last skimmed the Sun a couple of weeks ago, and it was still the same old hateful and reactionary shit. And climate protestors were being vilified.
And a small and possibly petty quibble, but did Corbyn really have the possibility of a no-deal Brexit completely ruled out before agreeing to take the country to the polling stations for a snap general election? That’s not quite what it looks like to me. Though I can see that Corbyn was perhaps pushed into a corner, and can see why it’s probably best for now to gloss over the fact that a no deal Brexit has not been completely ruled out.
Hey ho, on we go…
The Guardian is really pissing me off. But I keep going back like a dog returning to its vomit.
At times it feels like I’m in pre-mod, but without being notified of the fact. Posts just disappearing when I hit post, or posts vanishing into thin air, but then appearing 20 minutes or so later when the thread has moved on. I usually tell myself that I’m just being paranoid, but…
A few days ago there was a Martin Rowson cartoon with the theme of the BBC and Tory bias. It made me think of the excellent article by Craig Murray from a week ago concerning Ian Austin and the BBC. I thought it would be appropriate to mention the points made by Murray, and so posted the following summary of his article;
This lasted about 10 minutes before being zapped. I tried to think what was unacceptable, and decided that perhaps mention of Craig Murray wasn’t welcome. So I deleted mention of him, and re-posted, but instead referring to ‘an article I’d read’. And this comment wouldn’t even post. Someone or something wouldn’t let the rewritten post through. And this is far from being the first time that this has happened.
As to what in the post could be disagreeable to the Guardian, I can only guess. Perhaps they are worried about copyright. Or perhaps someone doesn’t like it being pointed out that Ian Austin is the Tory Trade Envoy to Israel. Whatever…
And so to today. I wrote a brief post pointing out that the Guardian is pushing the issue of prominant Jews who now refuse to vote Labour because of antisemitism, but never seem to give any space to Jews who would happily vote Labour. And I suggested that a piece on antisemitism by Noam Chomsky might be timely.
So, I hit post, but the post wouldn’t post. The comments then buffered for about 30 seconds, and when things cleared, my post had already been modded. So am I being secretly premodded? Or are there just trigger words or phrases that cause red flags?
You are in good company. It has happened to me and other people many times. The Freudian has been gatekeeping comments in full throttle since the last GE.
Ah, at least it’s good to know that I’m not alone in this, or losing my marbles. I keep telling myself that it’s time to give up on that rag, but old habits die hard. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
And sorry for going a little off topic, but I needed to vent. Thanks all.
Without tryin to sound like a smartarse, I have had much of what I posted to the graun left alone by taking out some of the names the moderators search for and then trusting readers to follow up on criticisms of the respected by the graun, loathed by anyone who knows, creeps.
Maybe less effective than a post which actually named Paul Johnson would be if it weren’t moderated out, but giving folks sufficient info to search out the details of his contempt for readers for themselves, does beat not being read at all. Yes it is wrong, but that is our current reality and short of shooting such types (which lets face it if were an isolated incident, is more likely to result in beatification across all channels than an y alert of the slimeball’s hypocrisy) all we can do if we post to neoliberal zionist sites such as the graun, is use allusions and trust our fellow humans do check things out.
Yes, you are paranoid, but yes, they are out to get you… 😉
I used to post as captainbeefheart, but so many of my posts got modded off, I decided to stop posting and deleted my account. I think any mention of Israel gets a *flag* ~ so can be promptly modded. BTL now reads musl less *liberal* than it used to. I think the G’s readership has changed.
much NOT musl
The best thing you can do is try not to get shoved off and silenced. Like many here have – there’s a thread on this site of how people were suspended.
Get smart. Make statements which say ‘in my opinion.. ‘ there is no need to attribute where you read it or who wrote it – until asked.
That way you get the message on there – which many of us btl here and the likes of Craig Murray can’t. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind either.
Onivar!
I was a little naive in naming Craig Murray, not realising that he had been blackballed by the Gruan. I thought it respectful to name the author, but as you say, no need to attribute, and the message is the main thing.
I have become much more careful and wary when posting on the Gruan. It used to be that a lot of leeway was given, real dissent was allowed, and even discussing moderation was tolerated. Not anymore. Not since Katherine Viner was appointed.
I’ve been put in full pre-mod before; twice for going off message with regards to Israel, and once for calling Viner a cunt. But a week or two of posting nothing but innocuous blandness was enough to get the pre-mod lifted. but I suspect that I’m on thin ice.
I’m regularly modded, and sometimes multiple times a day, but often just for childish insults. So perhaps it’s time for me to smarten up a bit, and stop treating cif as a bit of a playground.
Same happened to me. I rarely post there, and only for football and IT stuff.
Viner was the US Editor before she took over the big job. She’s clearly been trained / briefed, and “in my opinion” she is, like several others, members of SIS.
I began to wake up to what the feux left-liberal Guardian was all about many years ago when its weekly magazine refused to publish two letters from me (in the days before the internet).
The first letter, which was only indirectly political, was acknowledged by the letters editor who disputed most of my facts and wouldn’t publish it. My letter was subsequently vindicated by the findings of a public inquiry.
My second letter wasn’t political at all. It concerned an article on the history of the LP record in which the author had made some fairly elementary errors of fact, which I sought to have corrected (citing my sources). The Guardian didn’t acknowledge it, let alone print it, preferring to keep its readers misinformed.
Mentioning Craig Murray has probably put you into permanent pre-moderation.
I used to comment on the cartoon thread but the referendum put paid to that. I found people I had assumed were left-wing, were in fact diehard, remainer liberals who brooked no alternative view. They were even wishing that Donald Tusk could be our PM.
That’s weird, isn’t it. How the F would that even work…? Let alone what they would hope to gain by it.
No it’s not just paranoia and it’s not just the ‘guardian’, try posting anything not diluted in 100% hate BTL at the Mail. I had an experience with the Huff post when they once did a ridiculous hit piece on George Galloway. I posted something saying perhaps they should focus on real news such as Yemen instead. Comment went up got quite a few responses in a few minutes. Returned to article a bit later, comment was still there, no more likes, so what. Can’t remember why but got ‘paranoid’ intuition that something wasn’t right. Opened the page using my partners computer and sure enough my comment was no longer there. Moral of this story…..just because you can’t see you are censored it doesn’t mean you are not.
This article represents the actual lobotomisation of critical compassionate consciousness. As it also reveals the limitless depth of unconsciousness that bourgeois bad faith represents. If you do not know why: well, you’ve never read one of my factual critiques of what our life-blind value choices actually represent. In brief: exponential extermination.
It also is the antithesis of everything I stand for and why I disdain champagne socialists so much: they really have no idea of the extended consequences of their intentional choices and life-blind behaviour patterns. Their parochial universalism ends at the beaches and cliffs of this sceptred isle. Well, they do not. That is a deliberate insularism that character masks their real impact on the world. Which they will never accept or feel co-responsible for all they misery they cause. Because they are human. But taking a systems view of planetary impacts would mean radical self-sacrifice and an embrace of universal compassion and empathic loving kindness. And they are either too lazy or incapable of real change. So they make up character masking propagandic narrative constructions: like the one above.
I mean: we as the global bourgeoisie already consume some 3.45 planetary biocapacity equivalents. How much do you greedy fuckers really want to consume? When distribution is a zero-sum game: that means murder …for biodiversity and the humanity we care so much about. The hypocrisy is boundless: the compassion “more self-absorbed political onanism”.
Real compassion is about an equitable world for all: which is the theme I write to. I can see why it is so unpopular. We would have to give up on this high consuming, high emitting, high polluting lifestyle completely: and we will not. We are choosing to extend and pretend that our life-blind value choices are compassionate; not the set of extinction and extermination protocols they really are. Well, who is deluding who? Because I am not drawn into the self-deceit. And no one is ‘mind-controlling’ the narrative. We are self-responsible for it ourselves.
We are the corporate green revolution now. And we will be co-responsible for the consequences. The life-blind values of the corporate GND have been internally and uncritically absorbed by us: most of us. I tried to warn what this would entail: but no one actually gives a fuck so long as they can have their bourgeois beliefs co-validated. That every aspect of the GND has been debunked is of little consequence. Facts do not matter. Bourgeois bad faith fact free opinions are all that count politically.
That the GND was a corporate agenda – exposed by Cory Morningstar – has already been memory holed. Now we have the ‘climate election’ that will decide the future of humanity. We chose our own alternative facts. Labour are promising a ‘just transition’ of inclusive corporate self-responsible values: and the people rush to legitimate their own potential extinction …and certain exponential extinction for biodiversity and much of humanity. And the most trenchant piece of critical appraisal is this servile capitulation and obedient deference to corporate authoritarianism? This is actual mass psychosis masquerading as normalcy. Which exposes the pathocracy of political hypernormalcy.
You have adjusted your unconsciousness to actual insanity as a form of psychotic realism. Rather than adapt to freedom and universal compassion for all life – including the Unborn life that will now remain unborn thanks to bourgeois bad faith opinionated narrative construction. We did it to ourselves. It also exposes the alt-media as a mirror corporatocracy – co-constituted by the very same values we are critical of all year. As soon as it comes to an election: we rush out to re-constitute and validate the very same corporate power structure and regimes of truth and power. The same regime we are about to legitimate once again. If no one else can see the irony and hypocrisy: I can. We are part of the incorporated state and internalise its values as our own. And call this change. Real change would require a much greater level of work and self-sacrifice: that we will not even contemplate undertaking.
So don’t blame me or Frank for pointing out the infinite levels of hypocrisy on show. We can only change if we are all self-responsible. We need to create an alternative to capitalism and bourgeois bad-faith: not keep obsequiously acquiescing to incorporated state murder. That it is exported is all that makes it blindsight acceptable. If not: it is the democratic totalitarianism and crypto-fascism over all life. Well done for making it seem so normal and benign. There will be no end to this insanity while we are so self-absorbed and uncritical. Congratulations: extend and pretend to the end.
Last two paragraphs particularly poignant.
But how on earth are we to redeem ourselves? How can we be expected to sacrifice our adherence to superfluous conveniences, take responsibility for our own actions and critically evaluate life as if we actually knew what was going on around us?
Those adhering to the conditioned narrative are not hypocrites – they are victims of a malignant force that is well equipped to instill reactive inertia within a populous.
Cassandra2:
That malignant force is co-created. Frank mentions Weber – to whom I could add Marx, Durkheim, Habermas, and Deleuze and Guattari. Or the Buddha. We are born into, socialised, and ‘educated’ (in a Gatto, Inglis, and Frierian sense – that is inculcated into) that malignant force. If we do not recognise this: we validate this malignancy not every five years – but every thought-moment of our lives …as an unconscious artifact of that cultural malignancy.
So the first step has to be to recognise the cultural malignancy as metastatic: not normal. Which more and more people are and do. Then there has to be a viable alternative: not a modification of a cultural malignancy that is our Capitalist Realism. There is no such thing as ‘Green Capitalist Realism’ as will be voted for to legitimate on the 12th.
It all boils down to cognition in the end. Which is why Buddhists base everything on Sadayatana/Indriya – which is the validity of cognition …contemporised for the modern age by Varela and Maturana. And implicit in the late work of Merleau-Ponty. Everything that is created is co-created by all co-constituent members. Which of course include the political para-reality. We are so hung up on the mythology of ‘independent individuality’ we cannot see the true co-constituent group dynamics …because we are all ‘separate’ and ‘individual’. We are not. We co-create, co-adapt, and co-evolve as the group dynamism of an adaptive complex system. Our beliefs and actions are not individual: but co-conciliated across the nodes of the population group dynamics. This is a top-down control of predator dynamics, for sure. But one that is validated by the co-constitution of the bottom up control of ‘prey’ dynamics …ostensibly for the General Will and benefit of all. So when were we ever benefiting as co-equal in this arrangement? Never in my lifetime.
The political para-reality requires that we intermittently validate it and give it legal-rational status’ transferring our collective autonomy to the authority and dominative overpower to others – the incorporated state. The state is a legal person – or legal fiction – co-constituted by the rights and freedoms of natural persons. In giving away our freedom so cheaply: we submit to be infantalised wards of quasi-legal dominative overpower. The quasi-legality of this is that we have lost our freedom and autonomy …but we are not victims – we choose – time after time – to give it away. To a cultural malignancy that is consuming and costing the earth.
So I do not know the answer to your question. Because the time for rationality and meditative shadow work has gone: and we are committing to an anomic suicide pact with the corporate green revolution within a month. The fact that this was exposed by Cory in January is testament only to the depth of unconsciousness we are dealing with. Which is almost total by now. The crash of the global financial system is baked in. In fact it seems to me as to be in motion. The collective trauma of which may shift people away from being such passive and obedient wards of the incorporated state? But if we agree to restart the same failing metastatic malignancy again as we look certain to legalise anomic suicide in the form of a GND (Boris the Eco-Warrior? Can people not see straight through this suicidal corporate agenda in the fact that Boris is promising a green revolution. How blindsighted and self-absorbed have we become when things are that obvious?) …well, carpe deum and live for the moment and hope that the manifest idiocracy of others does not actually completely collapse in our alloted time. But collapse it surely will: as validated and given legal-rational status by us.
An excellent post that pulls no punches. We are the problem. Has capitalism and individualism drummed out all and any sense of self sacrifice for the good of all?
I blame soft furnishings. We’ve all gone soft, and most are getting fat. We’ve become nothing but gluttons. Glug glug glug… Feed the face, feed the face.
And I’m as bad. Sloth and complacency are my sins. I try to turn away from the truth, because the truth demands that I pay attention. And the truth demands that I work hard, and toughen up. But always reaching for a distraction, any distraction.
Thanks for your post BigB, a needed kick up the arse.
One more reason for not voting Labour and supporting that blood soaked warmonger Jeremy Corbyn:
” . ..We can only change if we are all self-responsible. We need to create an alternative to capitalism and bourgeois bad-faith: not keep obsequiously acquiescing to incorporated state murder.”
@bevin – Are you serious? I replied to your original post in good faith, and can see some hardcore calls to arms, but I took your suggestion not to vote as a kind of whimsical cherry thrown in for decoration. How on earth does not voting in this election help? Unless, that is, you have a plan for imminent revolution and action, and a plan that will kick in before Dec 12th.
And calling Corbyn a blood soaked warmonger is just nonsense. Are you just gallopingly insane?
So come on, I’ve swallowed what you have to give above, but I must have misunderstood. How is not supporting Corbyn, who is the closest that we have to someone attempting to create an alternative to capitalism and bourgeois bad-faith in the here and now, how is not supporting him attempting to create an alternative to capitalism and bourgeois bad-faith?
So, what’s your plan of action in the here and now? I’m all ears…
Though actually, I can see why you would call Corbyn a blood soaked warmonger, in relation to your above statement concerning us in the west consuming too much, and so creating harm and destruction in other parts of the world.
And this greedy and guzzling aspect of ‘us’ is perhaps distasteful, but it is life as we know it at the moment. Things need to change if we really care about all life, but that change can’t occur suddenly. Or it can, but only with a global war of epic proportions. Or in other words, Armageddon. Is that what you wish for?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have called you insane, but calling Corbyn a blood soaked warmonger is pretty… intense. And out of interest, do you also call doctors who give women abortions murderers?
I wish that I hadn’t jumped into conversation with you so quickly, and before I’d properly absorbed what you are saying. I’ve perhaps gotten into bad habits of running my mouth off, and engaging in conversations without thinking deeply enough about what is being said, and what is to be said.
I have forgotten that conversations don’t need to be rushed, and thought out on the hoof.
I’m not sure if you’re just trolling everyone, and guilt tripping people for being alive, or if you have an actual solution, or constructive ideas that will halt our rush towards destruction. If you’re spouting this apocalyptic diatribe while living the western life, then what are you doing? How is suggesting that people don’t vote, or calling Corbyn a murderer helping anyone change?
I am tired and feeling a bit frazzled. I hope we can continue this conversation tomorrow.
I am sorry. I was being sarcastic.
It seems to me that BigB’s argument, against the author of the article, and in favour of not voting Labour made the argument that horrified you. As it does me.
To be clear I don’t think that the Labour Party has ever had a more principled, anti-imperialist and genuinely committed friend of the people close to its leadership than it does now.
If I had a thousand votes I would cast them for him and for the country he so clearly loves.
I’m very sorry bevin, but I’ve made the most monumental cock up here. I’ve been replying to you and your reply as if you were BigB replying to his own post. I obviously wasn’t paying attention. Sorry again.
Though funnily enough, this confusion and cock up has really shaken something loose in my head. But probably better if I now slink off for a while before making any more of a tit of myself.
Good luck. Sarcasm is a blunt instrument and in my, unskilled hands, one best unused. BigB is rather a disconcerting poster in my view-his heart is in the right place but there is something very sectarian about his refusal to believe any good of socialists in the Labour Party. And that is a pity because elections like this one are very rare, once in a century events.
Oops – I shoulda read this before replying above. Heigh-ho.
Have to say that, with some sadness, I agree with your assessment of BigB.
Bevin:
We have had a two year conversation (?) about what the Labour party actually stands for. Staring with the collection for funds for the White Helmets and the support of the charity regime change Jo Cox Foundation. And the support for Browder’s Magnitsky para-regime change agenda. And the support of NATO’s Drang nacht Osten occupation of Eastern Europe. Among other things.
And yet you still commit to describe the Labour party as “principled and anti-imperialist”. Flying in the face of every fact I have posted? Your sarcasm is rather reflected in your confirmation bias Bevin, is it not?
But you are not alone. The co-constituted mythology of the Labour party is a community social agreement of reality that is immune to fact. Everything I have ever posted about Corbyn has been memory-holed by its constituent members. But the one thing that should still be fresh in the memory – but is not – is that the GND is a global corporate agenda which the Labour party is fronting. As exposed by Cory in January. And as linked by the very same Avaaz spin-off organisations that are behind the Jo Cox Foundation.
If you had actually read both in-depth investigative reporting: would you still be sarcastic? I told you in May that the GND was an anomic suicide pact with the corporate green revolution. I even offered to go through the proposals (which will be no doubt drawn from the Committee for Climate Change proposals – another corporate agenda I exposed) …to show that they are science-fiction. If people choose to ignore this, there is little I can do. But you at least had every fact to hand and chose not to believe it or even engage with exposing the GND.
And that is how we have got to this point: with people ignoring the implications of the GND and entering into a false sense of security …because the corporate authority says we can transition our lives without disruption via a ‘just transition’ to carbon neutrality. That people can uncritically actually accept this beyond disconcerting. We are entering into an anomic suicide pact with absolutely zero dissension. Search the internet: I’m a bit of a lone voice in the wilderness of UK politics. Whatever I say: a form of the GND or ‘green revolution’ will be ratified on the 12th.
Nothing will happen on the 13th; nor – absent the crash of the global financial system, which is locked in – will anything happen in subsequent years. So I will be dismissed as mad. But the long term consequences of the GND make certain this civilisation will not survive. That is guaranteed. To be sure: debt alone destroys civilisations – as we may see in the interim …before the catastrophic cascading failures we are about to give legal-rational legitimacy kick in. But there will be no just transition to degrowth and global equality. People rather enjoy the spoils of an immoral inequality: as judged by their voting habits.
As from the 12th we are fucked: but no one will take this seriously. Green imperialism, the privatisation of nature, biodiversity trading, and carbon credits will all be locked in. Oh, they did not mention that did they? When we realise too late: we will come to rue the day we let the green corporate revolution choose our future. That we did not speak up will count against us. Well, I for one – with many other Cassandras – predicted it would come to this. And here we are. If there is even a chance I am right: should we have not critically examined it? Instead of ignoring it because it did not suit the Corby narrative? Should we not even consider the Great Simplification and degrowth rather than extend and pretend to the end with eternalised expansionism and green corporate exponential extirmination? No: apparently not. We preferred a good story instead.
Stalin said never trust the Labour party as they are nothing more than the left-wing branch of the Tory party, and that was back in the 50’s seems no one wants to learn from the great communist leader!
BigB – Perhaps Labour and Corbyn could do with being more enlightened on certain issues. Most people could. But who else is in a position of power, at this moment in time, to push things in the right direction?
It’s all well and good to rage against everyone’s ignorance, but from a pragmatic point of view, what is the most positive and realistic action, and with what we have on the table right now?
Bitching about Corbyn and Labour, and focusing on their failings just before this election, could look to be nothing but an exercise in nihilism and futile pessimism. Why not work with what we have, rather than focusing on what we don’t have?
You talk of Love and Understanding and Compassion, but couldn’t some of that Love and Understanding and Compassion be put to a better and more productive use?
And if you think these words patronising or ignorant or misplaced, well, perhaps they are. But I feel the need to push back against your negativity. And I say this as a pessimist who often thinks that we are fucked, and past the point of no return.
BigB
I get where you’re coming from and the issues we face which are even greater than those you have managed to outline. I lost interest in Brexit as soon as the shortlist of candidates to succeed Theresa May was announced. Political choices across the board now are not so different from going to a Doctor and them asking you to tick a box selecting what kind of cancer you would prefer to die from.
I think the main political split these days is between those who believe in unlimited economic growth on one side and on the other side, those that think that you can’t have infinite growth and economic expansion on a finite planet and therefore we need to carefully nurture and manage whatever resources we have left.
The big questions are how we transition from growth to degrowth. In practical terms entirely stopping our usage of fossil fuels is not an option as it will lead to the death of millions particularly the elderly poor when intermittent renewable solutions fail to provide heating when it is needed.
The philosophies of Neoliberal economics are entirely dependent upon growth economics and this is their weak point. If we can’t have unlimited growth, then we can’t have Neoliberal economics so it is not the historical end point of economics as is claimed by its proponents.
All of our previous tribal politics are useless in the face of this transition as both left and right have always been predicated on the notions of economic growth and the over centralization of labour, production and consumption in determining what should be central to constituting ‘us’. Any transition to degrowth will obviously have to mean a radical break with all the assumptions of Neoliberal Capitalism with greed and its protestant work ethic on the right and the Marxist aestheticification and subjectifacation of labour on the left.
All we can come up with at this stage are starting points. Personally I believe we need to restore morality and ethics to a system which is utterly corrupted in every sense and area. Amongst many things this means a return to ethical forms of production and consumption. As much as one can marvel at contemporary productive systems then in a gestalt switch one can see them as ‘productive’ at one moment and then recognize them as being nothing other than a global massively complex waste production and disposal system. For the last 40 years we have seen the illusion of growth but it has grown out of ever accumulating debt and increasingly large productions of waste. Now via the psychologies of FOMO we see almost desperate consumption where not a single consumptive moment is to be lost or sacrificed.
To this end perhaps we could legally require producers that their products should all come with a minimum 25 year guarantee, and also a guarantee that as consumers we will actually use, repair and recycle the stuff we need instead of just briefly storing consumer junk before loading it up for a trip to the tip. According to Michael Hudson, J is or Junk Economics, but it is also for Junk Production and Junk consumption and these are key issues we need to address.
There is perhaps a role for government to play in all of this but we must also all acknowledge our own responsibilities if we are to change things. We need to recognize that their is no human right to two or three foreign holidays a year and that there is no right to a new BMW every three years. We need to be able to make use of the stuff we have, have the means of freely transferring it to others if we fail to use it, and also have the right and means of repairing it and recycling it whenever possible. We need to look outside the worlds of labour and production and back into the worlds of family and community for our meanings and this will require some kind of operating system to bring communities together in order to define themselves on their own terms.
There’s so much more to discuss, but these could at least be starting points.
Simon
”To be clear I don’t think that the Labour Party has ever had a more principled, anti-imperialist and genuinely committed friend of the people close to its leadership than it does now.
If I had a thousand votes I would cast them for him and for the country he so clearly loves”
Yikes! Talk about cult of the personality! This is the sort of patter that used to be trotted out in the Stalinist regimes of Mao, Ceaucescu and Enver Hoxha.
Was Corbyn the same principled leader who caved to zionist intimidation and allowed long-serving members of the party to be hounded and disappeared into obscurity?
Was this the principle leader who also allowed the adoption of the IHRA. The Labour party, just like the Tory party, and both parties in the US has been penetrated and increasingly controlled by active zionist pressure groups.
Was this the same principled leader who changed his mind about Trident?
Was this the principled leader who was once a eurosceptic but then had a Damascene conversion when he saw which way the wind was blowing and who caved in to the baying middle-class Remainer mob. Doesn’t sound very principled to me, but perhaps I am missing something.
But none of this should come as any surprise. Leaders of the Labour Party have a long history of accommodation to the PTB and existing order. Just think of MacDonald 1924 and 1931, Wilson 1966,1974 and not forgetting of course our own lovely Tony Blair in 1997. The only exception would seem to be Attlee in 1945, but in hindsight that looks a bit of a fluke not to be repeated.
These are not minor issues, but of course any realistic appraisal of the history and present situation of Labourism will meet with the usual stonewalling of the Labourist quasi-religious cult, and blank stares of its adherents, ‘blank and pitiless as the sun’.
Well guys it looks like we are not going to get Brexit, the centre-right/centre-left blob the media, and the judiciary have so ordained. An affront to democracy? Absolutely. Welcome to the post-modern, post-democratic woke regime, of hyper-individualism and money power.
Principled governance is only possible to be an actuality AFTER gaining government, in most instances (didn’t help Cook get his ethical foreign policy though).
The Labour leadership has played a blindet by NOT engaging the ‘far away’ but by staying focussed on the here & now.
That may lead to the false accusation of ‘abandoning principles’, but is actually a case of reasonable pragmatism. After all Wolfie Smith was created to start the abandonment of principles by ridicule – and no one is today seriously able to make such a caricature of todays Labour stick!
Anyway we will see if Bobo’s minders decide to transfer him to a safe seat or they have decided that all is lost so let him go down with the ship – he would be useless as an opposition back bencher seating next to May anyway.
bevin I gotta say I too was momentarily taken in. If I hadn’t known you better then I like ity would have taken your words at face v.
I know to my own cost that sarcasm, in the written word and read by folks who don’t know you, is dangerous. See my BTL exchange with Jaemeon in a post I’d written on Caitlin Johnstone
You have a point but only those in Corbyn’s constituency can vote for him. Everybody else has to inspect whether their labour candidate is credible and will work with Corbyn or against him, as 80% of the current PLP do – the labour party has singularly FAILED to support candidates in my constituency for 20 years now – the poor trolope has had to make do with a handfull of flyers and posters for the entire district with no paid support or acknowledgement from labour HQ – the current labour party is a sham, with odd rules and regs and very poor media savvy – it doesn’t seem to occur to the labour party that to gain governance my constituency is one they need to win!!
Which party holds your constituency, as a matter of interest, and which party is the closest contender?
I used to be a big fan of Corbyn until it became clear he’d gone native on the EU. How he plans to organise an alternative to capitalism, while being tied to the über-capitalist EU is an interesting problem. Perhaps he is good at squaring circles. Fair play to him: he’s seen off two Tory Prime Ministers, and numerous challengers to his leadership. People underestimate him at their peril. But I can’t support his stance on the EU.
Ok, one more post. Sorry for gibbering on, and sorry for calling you a troll. You are obviously doing what you can, which is to speak the truth. And that is surely enough. Your posts have really got to me, and that can only be a good thing.
I used to know this truth of yours, I saw it loud and clear. But then I conveniently forgot it. Or I became distracted. Or couldn’t cope with being open to such a reality. I hid from this truth by focusing on the small, on the close. On what is mine. Brexit and this election hasn’t helped. It was something close to focus on I suppose.
But your suggestion that we shouldn’t vote for Corbyn still doesn’t ring true. Not in the here and now. Right now we need the Tories out. We have a battle that is right now, so why ignore it? Ignoring this small battle won’t help the bigger battle. It could hinder the bigger battle.
Though I’ll admit that you’re suggestion that Corbyn is a blood soaked warmonger certainly did the trick. But isn’t this an unhelpful truth at this moment in time? I mean it helped me, but will it help everyone else? He might be blood soaked, but these things are relative. We’re all blood soaked here.
How to make the steps small enough so that people can step up on them? You’re right about the memory hole being closed. But how to open it up again?
I’m all over the place tonight, and am probably making a fool of myself. But that’s ok. In the grand scheme of things, that’s ok.
Night, and thanks for the reminder.
The story that Gabrielle tells is that of how revolutions begin.
And, in revolutions the PLP and their ilk signify not at all. So nobody should worry about them-Corbyn is making his appeal to a higher tribunal, the people. And the question asked of them is whether they see themselves as the “sovereign people.”
I am not suggesting that a revolution is coming, of that I know nothing. But these are the pre-conditions.
Firstly there is the flagrant injustice and blatant inequality, which increases every day. There are the Food Banks with an increasingly mainstream clientele. There are the ‘no hours contracts’, the casualisation, the end of Union protection except for the lucky few who barely require it. There are the injunctions-like the current ban on striking after a 97% strike vote at the Post office. There are the increases in utility bills, at a time when paying for fuel and heat is becoming hard to manage for many. There is the increasing cost of accommodation and the inevitable increase in homelessness. In begging. In sickness. In hunger and starvation.
And there is the slow throttling of the non-profit aspects of the NHS.
And all this is reflected in the decline of life expectancy, which, among much else, indicates that life has become cheapened, which, among other things, means that people will be ready to die in order to effect change.
And then there is the reversal of the long slow process of social mobility-this is signified in the growth of the private educational sector, the decline in working class entrants to University and the contempt for the poor which is evident throughout the media, and nowhere more than in bienpensant liberal circles from which The Guardian, the BBC and other organs of The Establishment emanate.
It is this, perhaps, which is the most significant: after decades of treating the masses like shit, the ruling class has begun to believe that the people are an insignificant opposition. That they can be flicked away, politically, like flies. That public opinion is infinitely malleable.
That even if Corbyn is elected Prime Minister it will be a bagatelle to sabotage him, to de-rail his project, to cram the Labour movement-with the help of Blairism-back into its box. The Establishment, long symbolised by Colonel Blimp, is not only nasty but stupid and crass. If Corbyn is elected it is very likely that large parts of the Civil Service, the forces and the City will mutiny. What the US Deep State has done against Trump is nothing compared to what will be done of Corbyn wins.
And that is how revolutions begin: the moderate demands, the polite, constitutional requests for reform, the simple plea to restore matters to what they are widely thought to have once been, are laughed at. Those making them are sneered at, smeared and threatened. The sneers against Corbyn are so endemic that half of the intellectual left share them-there are several instances below of this.
If Gabrielle is right, and I live an ocean away so I am a bad judge of that, something of world historical importance is happening in the UK, in Wales and England anyway. Something of international importance, of European importance. It may not be evident in these circles but I suspect that it is clear enough in Nazareth, La Paz and the favelas around Rio.
A rift in the Empire, close to its ancient heart, might be about to occur. If it does it will be because the Tory scum have pushed the people too far. And the many are awakening.
Who knows? Only one thing is certain, revolutions start this way.
Indeed. Thank you for that. All true, the situation is far more crucial and critical than most realise.
I feel you Bevin.
What more can be said?
How to fight imperialism without taking up arms? At the centre of empire? We have a general election of the order of 1945, when Churchill the great leader and saviour was immediately fired!
I can only give you the example of Gandhi.
Is Corbyn an equivalent?
First they ignore you. Then they riducule you. Then they fight you. Then you win!
We must register everyone and they must vote.
This is not Bolivia. OUR vote can not be so easily ignored or manipulated if we are vigilant. The next few weeks are indeed capable of changing the course of this empire peacefully.
Funny. That’s exactly what is happening to our vote in 2016. Being ignored or manipulated.
Exactly. That’s why I hold out no great hope for Corbyn. Even before becoming PM (assuming he eventually does achieve that) he has already capitulated to the Blairites twice: first, by dismissing all his potential allies inside the party as a result of a fake ‘anti-semitism’ hysteria; second, by powerfully helping to sabotage Brexit, which was his only hope of renationalising the railroads.
Yes, and this revolution started with the Brexit vote. But then came the counter-revolution as the ensconced PTB, big money, the political class and corporate power the media, various television and film personalities together with the rest of the Remainer stage army would not accept the result. This hysterical reaction came the very day after the referendum, result and constituted a genuine counter-revolution. This has entailed the annulment of a perfectly valid referendum outcome and a de facto soft coup. Those who voted leave were effectively disenfranchised their votes being annulled. Why was my vote annulled? Did I do anything wrong, did I break any laws? I don’t think so, but I did commit the dreadful sin of voting the wrong way. This will not be allowed to happen again. Universal franchise will only be granted to those with the correct political views. Vote for comrade X as there are no other candidates.
In China they have something called social credit, in Europe we have what might be called political credit. In essence only those who vote the ‘right’ way will have a meaningful vote, even if it takes more than one election. A Brave New World yes?
Cobblers. It wasn’t a perfectly valid referendum. As every brexiteer who claims the people want it but won’t risk asking them to confirm as they stand at the doorway ready to jump out of the plane on their jolly parachute jump – it is normal to ask ‘are you sure you want to do this and know where your emergency chute cord is?’
The real ancient monieed classes are the ones who MADE brexit to escape from the clutches of ever increasing EU regulations that would put an end to theirr centuries of larceny, tax evasion and offshore piracy.
To create their Singapore on Thames.
The average austerity thumped voter was fooled into believing that political choice by Cwron/Osborne/Clegg, was the EU’s fault.
Many who are fooled don’t ever like admitting it like Mark Twain wrote & compound their idiocy by carrying on justifying the foolishness.
Spot on Dungroanin!
Looks like we have a Remoaner crowd in tonight Francis. Bad luck.
Well there is little to disagree with in your analysis of Corbyn as an electoral asset. The problem he, and the rest of us have, is the PLP standing behind him, daggers drawn, ready to sabotage him at any and every opportunity.
These people do not merit our votes.
Moreover, the elephant in the room of Brexit is alienating many of their core voters and Corbyn has been railroaded into a ridiculous position on Brexit that is not tenable in the eyes of many Brexiteers and Remainiacs alike.
I expect a hung Parliament this time around, hopefully with a clearout of the dog-in-the-manger MPs on both sides who have brought us to this state of political paralysis, swiftly followed by another election which might at last give a more definitive and beneficial outcome.
The majority of PLP were originally 100% against a return to a democratic socialist Labour Party, however as time as marched on, a significant part of hard core Blairites, “ centrists “ “ moderates” have either left the party, been deselected or biding their time in anticipation of another perceived landslide victory for the Tories. Most of them have decided to play along with the notion of Labour socialist policies whilst constantly trying to nullify them. Witness Thornberry, Starmer, Tandy, McDonell,etc whose tactics are to try to undermine the authority of JC since they cannot do it democratically. Remember the vote at the last Labour convention went against them in regards to Brexit. Corbyn has been in politics long enough to know you can’t win against entrenched right wing entitlement views such as they possess by direct confrontation. It didn’t work in the early eighties and it certainly wouldn’t work now. By offering the electorate the chance to vote in a referendum, he played the art of the possible. Willy Brandt called it Realpolitik.
Moreover, despite the best efforts of the MSM, the State Broadcaster and the Tories other very important issues are at play here. The NHS, the environment, the economy etc. The voter does not vote by Brexit alone. Bojo, despite his role as clown, knows this very well hence his timid secret appearances at hospitals and his George W Bush moment at the recent floods. Not forgetting of course he was forced into making these fleeting PR appearances, along with the contrived Tory opening of their GE campaign attended by more journalists than paid Tory supporters. His handlers know very well he is detested by much of the public hence why his appearances are furtive and fleeting.
The propaganda machine distorts the many of the populaces perception of Bojo but being a natural bungler and incompetent to boot, the Goebbels team are losing their ability to control the narrative. JC, as CNN said, is a very good campaigner. The Tories know this as does their billionaire handlers hence The Herculean attempts to neutralise Corbyn. Labour will do very well in the election which is why you are witnessing the most unprecedented propaganda campaign in living memory against the democratic socialist Labour party.
Your only as good as your last performance, seems to be a very misconstrued saying. It’s obviously gone down the memory plug hole the achievements that Jeremy Corbyn has achieved since overwhelmingly winning the leadership twice. Moreover, it has been easily brushed aside by his critics within the party just how difficult the obstacles have been placed in his way. For example, prior to JC’s leadership the party was in incremental terminal decline. It’s membership had fallen by 250,000, it had been wiped out in Scotland ( a former bastion of Labour), many former rock solid Labour seats had become marginals and the majority of the PLP ( mostly comprised of Blairites, centrists, “ moderates” parachuted in by the central listing system under New Labour) were fervently against any attempt to return the party to its democratic socialist roots. Furthermore, as the essayist has alluded to, JC has been assaulted by a Tsunami of propaganda by the majority of the MSM and the State Broadcaster not forgetting of course the quislings within the Labour Party.
However, despite the relentless slinging of slime smear and downright lies by the previously mentioned enemies of the democratic socialist Labour Party, it won at the last election 30 seats, the Tories lost 12 and their majority plus Labour had the biggest share of the vote since the landslide victory of 1945 with approximately 13,000,000 voters. In addition, the membership increased from approximately 250,000 to at the last count to about 480,000 members. Making it not only larger than all the other U.K. parties membership combined but also the largest party in Europe.
Therefore, it does not take the intellect of Einstein, who was a committed socialist, to perceive why the enemies of the democratic socialist Labour Party have had to use lower than a snakes belly tactics to attack Labour. They cannot win by any other means. It’s very important to keep this in mind because until recently neither the Tories, the Tory lite members dare speak its name. Discussion of policies was avoided like the plague by them because they didn’t have any or only regurgitated Neo Liberal policies. As Einstein also said, if you keep repeating a mistake don’t expect it to be different the next time. Lastly. it’s self evident that this fact has penetrated the tactics of the Tories and Bojo is proclaiming his new found belief in state spending plus intervention on behalf of the 99% which he along with his billionaire handlers detest. JC is the only person courageous enough, brave enough and principled enough to take on the titanic forces of greed, avarice and self entitlement from the acolytes of the market knows best corrupting ideology.
A wonderfully accurate and rare comment pinpointing the exact nature of the leftist criticism of Corbyn. Thank you, you have made my day a little bit brighter. Looking at many of the so called leftist propaganda below, it is difficult not to lose hope and heart.
Yes, well, they still remain “wiped out” in Scotland, and I doubt if they will make any gains this time around.
(Gains in Scotland, I mean, just to be clear).
I’m sure they will make some gains elsewhere. Corbyn has been consistently underestimated, and will probably do better than many expect. Doubt if he will get an overall majority though. Labour-SNP coalition? hmm….
You forget two points.Firstly, it took nearly 20 years of New Tory/Labour policies to wipe out NL in Scotland. Secondly, the democratic socialist Labour Party made some gains in Scotland at the last GE. Moreover, the SNP is not as unassailable as they would have you believe. Just ask the Scots who have been complaining about them in government in Scotland and you will get a different tune from the one that they want the rest of the UK to hear.
Must say, I for one would be delighted to see the back of mouthy Ian Blackford in the Commons.
What’s all this Labour or Tory guff. Both are now history in Scotland left far behind by a free thinking nation. This outdated political circus is coming to an end very soon.
Your sole concern being Scotland I take it. Another five eight with only concern for themselves.
And we wonder why the planet is going tits up?
No need to wonder, you only have to read the comments on this thread to understand why.
Your planet my friend is “going up” with your continued support of a corrupt Establishment political system which if you continue to endorse will soon be in the pockets of our friends across the water. My concern is for Scotland to show people like you that there is an alternative. If you want to discuss selfish concern look no further than the clown going under the name of Prime Minister.
The whole purpose and the reason for the survival of the SNP is independence, which up until the GE was called did not factor in Nicola Stugeons thinking. The only way for the SNP continue, but not really, pursue an indy ref is with the Tories in charge. As a socialist Labour government would invest in all parts of the UK and not just the south and London.
The SNP are not that progressive, and I wish peopled would wake up to that fact.
You’d do better asking what ‘your’ Nicola’s been up to for the last 3 years – it’s not agitating for independence, that’s for sure.
Conman Cameron, Miserable May, Clown Boris all Great Prime Ministers ?? England is welcome to these charlatans. You have my deepest sympathy.
My prediction s that the SNP will suffer some unexpected losses and that Wee Jimmy Cranky will have a very eggy face on the morning of the 13th.
Really ?….Keep taking the pills, there’s a good chap.
Did Gabrielle have to involve Murdoch AND Young in this piece?
Or the vox pop? Otherwise good.
1. Turnout is the key – more voters more swing seats.
2. JC being given airtime was cruicial last time, even with the shill audiences and just 3 weeks – so this time there are not as many opportunities.
3. Murdoch (who chose Cummings and Bobo to deliver the hard brexit) is NEVER going to support the Corbynites. He may endorse as a last front page before election if he knows they are going to win big, just so he can ‘prove’ he supported the winner as usual. Murdoch no doubt has access to secret Cabinet Office polling – which must be showing the landslide.
4. The voters are still being goaded to hate Corbyn for being beardy, old, hippy dippy and AS terrorist lover, tax increaser….
The racism deployed against Abbott is immense – she may well have to indicate thar she will not take up her ministerial position for health reasons to encourage the Labour racists (who exist in far greater numbers than AS’s).
5. Only a massive ballot box stuffing (using postal votes) will stop or limit the Labour victory.
Otherwise expecting a smorgasboard of Portillo moments!
IDS aside, Johnson would be a cherry! Will he jump to a safe seat today?
Sorry, I don’t buy it. In my working-class community, Corbyn is perceived as weak, while Johnson is seen as someone who’ll get Brexit done. I know that’s mostly the effect of propaganda but it’s stuck. They would have rather he’d stood up to the allegations of anti-Semitism and I notice the Indian community, no doubt egged on by Patel, is embarking on the same soft power approach to Labour.
Speaking of Patel, she’s provided Labour with plenty of ammunition to use against her in speeches where she advocates replacing European immigrants with Indian ones….Kinder, gentler politics doesn’t work.
PS. I don’t know why you’re voting me down, I’m only giving you an honest appraisal of what the working class community I live in thinks.
Please educate your community. Sit them down and watch Boris with the sound off, the better to SEE him.
Hmmm, someone engaging in wishful thinking. So we are supposed to get behind the Labour party, i.e., the ‘Remainer’ party, the Labour Friends of Israel party, the pro-NATO, pro-Trident party, the largely Blairite party, Her Majesty’s loyal opposition party. Yes, just what we need. Writing in 1981, lifelong leftist Sam Aaronovitch declared that not only did the British people not need the European Community ”they needed to get out.’ The Treaty of Rome’, he said, ‘was a charter for the free movement of capital and labour, for cuts to public spending and state aid to industry, and for unbridled individualism and competition. Britain had joined in 1973 he said in ‘an act of political bankruptcy’ and ‘ leaving it would be a positive advantage.’ (”The Road From Thatcherism 1981”).
I have never voted Conservative and never will, but I am afraid that I cannot vote for the above, which if a Labour victory comes to pass. I remember the last time – 1997 – this sort when people got carried away on this sort of naive europhoria only to be bitterly disappointed with the outcome. This is the politics of all heart and no head. The sheepdogs are out and the loyalists are being herded into the polling booths. Wake up people, you’re being taken for a ride, not for the first time.
In the words of Max Weber:
”Politics is made with the head, not with other parts of the body or mind … there are only two sorts of mortal sin in the political world: lack of realism and lack of responsibility.” (Politics as a Vocation)
Corbyn is a very very different person to Blair. He can only really become the PM he wishes to be if he is elected, not before. If he is harmed in any way there will be very serious trouble in the U.K. that will take a very long time to sort out.
‘Corbyn is a very very different person to Blair.’ Yes, he is so principled that he sold out on his own life-long euroscepticism in the face of the Remainer lobby, caved in to the zionists and Labour Friends of Israel, with abject and humiliating apologies about his alleged ‘anti-semitism’ and allowed life-long members to be hounded out of the party by the zionist hate campaign, in addition, committing Labour to the IHRA definition of ‘anti-semitism’. Other forgotten little items include NATO membership and Trident renewal haven’t been mentioned as the form no part of the new Corbyn doctrine. And believe me this is only the beginning. Oh, and I forgot, Labour are going to reform the EU. Yeah right.
Yep, sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill opportunist politician to me. Backed by the Financial Times no less.
You’re still living in a 1970s style Student Union Trotskyist or even Stalinist utopia.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Corbyn is the only leader who can try and change Britain for the better.
If you lot belonging to the Tooting Popular Front don’t back him, then you’ll be aiding and abetting yet more neoliberal destruction of Britain and it’s inhabitants. How good of you.
Yes, very droll. What is happening to the benighted inhabitants of the EU. Presumably they are living in a neoliberal paradise? And, BTW what happened to the 51% who voted leave in 2016. Well I suppose its f*** them, they voted the wrong way. And anyway getting in office is more important than a democratic vote which was endorsed by a majority in spite of the PTB Remainer cheats.
Yes, we are very benighted here on the continent, no question about that. And there is no doubt that there is a huge problem with democracy, and well, with everything.
But from years of reading and watching, I believe it is a good bet that once free of the EU, the UK would not remain a free and independent state – it would fall directly into bed with the USA. How nice to open the floodgates for all of the “improvements” that come from across the pond. GMO, hormone beef and dairy, weapons, propaganda galore and a nice strong ring in your nose that will be pulled on by Washington. It is already bad enough within Europe, but we are still holding on by our fingernails to a scrap of hope that the EU will wake up and realise who they are representing (yes I know, no need for insults, I am likely dreaming – but some dreams do come true).
I am not against Brexit per se, if it was for any higher purpose of real benefit to the British people. However, I fear that instead of achieving British independence, you will just be changing one deal for a much worse one, for yourselves and also for the rest of us.
They say that the older one gets, the more to the right most people go politically. Francis must be very old because he’s now a full- on neoliberal ! LOL
Hate to break it to you Gerda, but the UK has been very much in bed with the USA for all of my lifetime, this event happened once the UK gave up any pretence of having a fully independent nuclear capability and decided to rely upon US technology and its nuclear capability.
As ever, the real issue with the UK is the fact that having lost its Empire its Elites have not fathomed what to replace such exploitation with, well apart from being a Yank arse wipe, certainly not the world that Labour’s 1945 administration desired, as any knowledge of Ernest Bevan would clearly detail.
The fact is, the UK is just a middling European Power who should abandon any further overseas adventures and concentrate on the dire condition our nation actually finds itself in, parting with the EU and NATO would go a long way in assisting the nation forge a new identity, one where its not detested by 50% of the global population.
Gerda, judging by your name, you would appear to be Scandinavian. May I ask from which country?
Anyway, I don’t really regard the Scandinavian countries as continental in the same way as France & Germany, etc. You are all far too sensible for one thing. 🙂
Instead of joining the Common Market, we should have remained with our friends and allies in the original EFTA, and strengthened that (loose) union. The history of the last 40-50 years would have been very different.
The 51% were largely lied to. Aside from that, however, a referendum in the UK is advisory, a huge opinion poll. The following year there was a GE which caused people to vote for MPs largely against a hard Brexit.
I do realise that parliamentary democracy is a difficult pill to swallow for far left revolutionaries Francis, but perhaps you are living in the wrong country? I think your social credit score would serve you quite well with the CCS in China, even higher in North Korea. Perhaps you and Andre Vltchek could even share a cell there, sorry, I mean one of those tiny communist apartments?
Every election and referendum which produces the “wrong” result from the point of view of our masters and betters, both here and abroad, is somehow automatically “rigged”, “stolen”, “illegitimate”, and can be sabotaged, ignored and discarded.
Having lost, they promptly invented fairy stories about Russian Bots and performed impressive mental gymnastics to seek to delegitimise the result. Implementing the will of the people suddenly became “crashing out”, “falling off a cliff” and similar emotive nonsense. Entirely fictitious and meaningless categories of “hard Brexit” any “soft Brexit” (ie ignoring the result and remaining in the EU) were created.
ALL political parties undertook to accept and implement the referendum result. As Nick Clegg said (when he expected to win), “Either you believe in democracy, or you don’t.” Not 51%, not 52%, but 100% were lied to, as they always have been.
But don’t worry, because the anti democratic elements like you will be getting their way. We won’t be leaving the EU, apart from not attending the Brussels Christmas Party this year. As in Ireland, as in France, as in Denmark, whenever a referendum goes against the Brussels Groupies it is simply ignored..
Strangely enough, I support full-on direct democracy, but it needs to be done properly, regularly, not in lieu of a broken system, nor corrupted by foreign-owned and offshore media moguls…i.e the Swiss DD model or similar.
So what are you going to do? Not vote? Ok, don’t vote and watch the Tories get in anyway. Yes, the Labour Party is an imperialist party and always has been since its foundation over 100 years ago. More to the point, assuming a Labour victory, will he ever be able to implement even his wishy-washy emasculated return to 1945?
Unfortunately we do have a tendency to suffer from parliamentary cretinism, as it has been called. The idea of piecemeal incremental reform is dead. It was killed off sometime in the 1980/90s. We are not living in that type of political system any more. It might have succeeded with the addition of extra-parliamentary politics which did not include the type of ritualistic voting every 5 years which basically got the same result. Oh, we did get the lesser evil argument, but the lesser evil turned out in practise to be as facsimile of the greater evil. And, in any case, these reforms were easily turned back beginning with the Thatcher-Reagan counter-revolution. As it presently stands the system is immovable. Like the EU it is structured to obviate change of any significant degree. Voting is not going to change this, although it may play some part. This seems common knowledge.
Until we get a mass movement outside of the usual political structures which is complementary to the usual political processes nothing fundamental will change. But of course mass movements required genuine political comittment, voting every 5 years is so much easier. If that’s what you want then carry on. Carry on doing something that results in the same disappointing outcome.
Well the ‘mass movement’triggered by Momentum (or should that be exploited by Momentum?) was killed off before it even got off the ground and for obvious reasons. Frankly I think John Lansman’s Momentum was a covert action of the Zionist Blairites. In any case, had Corbyn done the RIGHT thing and led a grassroots mobilisation, it would have split the Labour Party and (hopefully) led to the end of the Labour Party once and for all! But Corbyn is a party-man through and through, the Labour Party comes first. He’s also a political coward.
You mean a mass movement like Extinction Rebellion, for example?
hmmm….
Play the game of Lesser Evils for the thousandth time and expect a different result.
The definition of madness.
So instead don’t vote, yet continually get shafted and still complain at the election outcomes?
Do what you want, just don’t expect voting to serve any useful purpose.
Francis that merely shows up the fact that you are probably not homeless, not terminally ill, not having to resort to a foodbank to survive, do not have children whose careers, lives, futures are on the line.
In other words you are a hypocrite .
And will any of us not be terminally ill and reporting to food banks in the EU? Have a gander at Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal old chap. That is your alternative. They of course are having a whale of a time. So when you start calling people hypocrites try widening your horizons a little and tell me – who’s the hypocrite now?
I am not an EU supporter, never have been. Evidence on the ground suggests life is incredibly hard for people under this Tory regime. Anything would be better than this.
So called leftists who are deriding Corbyn seem to be doing it for the sake of nitpicking. I have worked as a Social Services OT so as a result of my long and painful experience in my opinion you are a hypocrite. Unless you can tell me truthfully what has been better for the great majority you are not only a hypocrite but you have also been conned by the widespread propaganda campaign against Corbyn.
Oh, I see, you want not only to vote Labour, but you’re also against the EU. Having your cake and eating it, yes? If only life was like that. Get real, you can have one or the other but you can’t have both.
Ever hear of democratic socialism, you know the kind of governance that works for the people, the kind of care provided by Norway, Denmark etc etc.
No excuse for ignorance or for having a pop because your ego has been dented.
Have I heard of democratic socialism, of course, but the trouble is democratic socialism has got nothing to do with the British Labour party. I voted Labour in each election from 1979, 1983, 1987, 1972, and 1997. The last being Blair’s ‘Education, education, education promise. Having been duly disabused I haven’t voted Labour or for any other political party since. Q. When was the Labour party last socialist, if ever? According to Orwell it was ‘pale pink humbug’. I don’t see any reason to disagree with that. Blair? Best not to mention him. Harold Wilson?and the white heat of the technological revolution? Another damp squib. Ramsay MacDonald and the great sellout of 1931. The same story in 1924. You really ought to brush up on your political history before you commit yourself to print. If anyone is ignorant around here is isn’t me.
The only real achievements were the Labour administration in 1945-50. But looking back that at the general tendency that was a one off fluke. It has never happened since and the odds are that it won’t.
One of the great “might-have-been”s of the 20th century is what might have happened if the 1951 election had been delayed until a more promising time in the polls. It’s a well-known story among people who have studied the period, but basically the small-c conservative Attlee held it when he did out of deference to the king, who was due to go on a world your, and didn’t want to run the risk of being called back to dissolve parliament and appoint a new PM in the event of a snap election.
Some have said that the popularity of the government was increasing at the time, and if that trend had continued, Labour might have won an election had it been held later (and as it was, they increased their popular vote, but lost seats).
~~~~~
That aside, one comment I might make to the above is that I think more kindly of Harold Wilson than you seem to. At least he was a true Labour man, and socialist, which is more than Blair ever was.
It’s one thing being an EU member, quite another to be one that’s also in the Eurozone. The Euro has been a disaster for most southern EU countries and the tiny ones that have no clout. Those retaining their own currencies have done mostly pretty well, take a look at Poland as an example. The remedy is not the chick out the baby with the bathwater. We are stronger together against the onslaught of the Neoliberal USA.
Yes, Poland has done so well that its population is moving west in droves to the extent that Polish is now the second language in the UK. Like the rest of Eastern Europe Poland is also rapidly depopulating, but then I suppose that this was the idea, viz., to bring down western European levels of living standards to Eastern European levels. Free movement of labour that’s what does the trick.
GDP per capita Poland and UK
Poland = $15,426.00
UK = $42,580.00
Source: countryeconomy.com 2018 figures.
Population of Latvia and Lithuania at independence.
3.7 and 2,75 million.
Population now.
2.7 and 1.95 million.
Will the last person in Latvia and Lithuania please turn off the lights.
Erm, no, Poland is re-populating.Large movement from UK back to Poland, including Anglo Saxons too. Also 2 million Ukies officially registered living there, estimated another 1 million unregistered.
Brexiteers don’t like facts apparently.
You do seem to revel in home goals Frank Speaker, and this is one of your best to-date, I mean, you argue unconvincingly that Poland must be a fantastic place to live as Polish persons exit the UK and return back to their place of birth, not realising many probably would have rathered remained with their families in Poland to begin with, alas, the economics drove them out. But your biggest blunder here is celebrating both Poland, and its membership of the EU, by proclaiming it a success because 2 million Ukrainian’s have fled their own country, vandalised by the EU and the Yanks, to flee extreme poverty and civil strife. I wonder how your average Pole thinks about these said facts, or, how your average Ukrainian thinks about these facts, which, lets be blunt, are nothing to celebrate or boast about. Indeed, it would seem you adore massive population movements, so evidently, you must applaud the trashing of Syria by the same Yank and EU bastards, among them ourselves, given, many Syrian’s escaped the head choppers by heading to Germany. Fact, facts, they are a bugger are they not?
Dear Chris,
You should try learning a few more facts than the selected few that you may have in your pocket. I have family and friends in both Poland and Ukraine, and visit there, and although not guaranteed, I do know a fair amount as to what is going on. I also have friends in Russia, and I have Russian friends and work colleagues where I live. I hope that I therefore have a reasonable perspective on some things occurring in that part of the world, as well as a good understanding of its history.
Ukraine has been disintegrating LONG before the EU co-supported coup, primarily due to a horrendous level of corruption and mismanagement. People have been flowing westwards from Ukraine to Poland, and way beyond, for several decades. The biggest outflow of Ukrainians in recent times has been eastwards to Russia, again because of the coup and subsequent war. That started around 2014.
Primarily because of the history of WW1 and WW2 a large part of the Polish population could either not return home, or were too afraid to, or simply did not want to live in a communist country. This global emigrant community is where most Polish post Soviet emigrants headed to, to start new lives.
Poland was a bit of a basket case when the Berlin Wall came down, as indeed were the other ex-Soviet countries. The EU had nothing to do with Poland in 1989 when this flow increased.
When Poland joined the EU a decade and a half later, and lots of emigration later, the UK and Ireland unilaterally decided to go against EU advice, and immediately invited Polish workers to come over rather than waiting 10 years like all the other EU countries except Ireland. That was a UK government decision, nothing to do with the EU.
It’s these immigrants who are now returning in large numbers to Poland due to the hostility of many Brexiters and also for economic and family reasons due to the impressive and growth of the Polish economy and general quality of life, far safer too for them and their kids than the white / brown / black ghettos of UK cities and towns.
Back to the Ukrainians, the ones that left earlier are not going back. A significant number who were in the UK have moved to Poland, to be nearer to home, and to live and work with similar friendly and respectful people.
Your comments about Syria are just irrelevant, and completely inaccurate in so far as you applying them to me. I am on the record here and elsewhere castigating NATO countries for the destruction of Syria and as aided an abetted by their head-chopping friends. I have supported the great intervention and salvation by Russia and the peace and relative stability it has brought to the country and the region.
The real issue is Chris, that you seem to paint everything and everyone with the same brush, everything is either black or white. Well, it’s not, it’s way more subtle and nuanced, as I am sure you know, but it’s intellectually easier just to follow the herd, whichever side of the political fence you may sit on, or whichever echo chamber you belong to.
Yours independently,
Frank
I don’t dismiss everything you say here, but I doubt if you can backup your claim that Poles moved back to Poland [partly] “due to the hostility of many Brexiters”. Frankly, that sounds like Remainer propaganda.
The Czech Republic is also doing pretty well. It is also outside the Euro zone. Yes, it has a lower GDP per head of population than the UK, but also a lower cost of living. I can’t speak for Poland (except that I thought a lot of Poles had moved back from the UK to Poland?), but I don’t think Czechia is depopulating.
People like you have been making left wing arguments for right wing governments since time immemorial.
Are you Paul Mason by any chance?
There was also false euphoria when Kinnock and Hattersley were in charge of the Labour party….the infamous Sheffield rally. they thought they had it in the bag. They gained seats, and the Tories lost seats, but still had a working majority. Labour only got 34.4% of the vote, to the Tories’ 41.9%.
Mind, Major’s majority was gradually whittled away by defections over Europe….not unlike Boris’s, come to think…
Murdoch was known as ‘Red Rupert ‘ when he was at university, apparently he also had a little statue of Lenin or Stalin, didn’t stop him joining the Council For Foreign Relations though,he’s an iconoclast,likes smashing stuff up,after which he can allow hedonistic anarchists to thrive,perfect for Corbyn, although it’ll be neoliberal iconoclastic anarchy,poor old Corbyn, still if he wins he’ll get what he wants the rest of us will continue to get shafted
Australian economist Bill Mitchell has got Corbyn and his chancellor well worked out though, trouble is all those young snow flakes haven’t so they’ll soon get a sweet taste of betrayal,yup yum yum 💔
There are no “young snowflakes” Crispy. The whole “Youthquake” was shown to be false. Young people in 2017, did what they always do, they didn’t vote in substantial numbers. Corbyn’s surge came from 25 to 45 year olds.
If Murdoch has contempt for traditional ruling class systems, it’s one of the few good things about him. But perhaps that underlines one of the strains within the capitalist system i.e. how to preserve an aristocracy within such a volatile system, thereby preventing a socialist revolution. Most solutions rely on preserving remnants of feudalism. The UK must be the worse for that – with its excruciating parade of clowns in luxuriant garb parading around and doing silly things with jewel encrusted staffs. The Americans like to jeer at this pantomime guff and refer to it as an indication of the UK’s backwardness. But then US can’t get enough of the royal news themselves.
Beware of the return of the black hanky.
Both the British and Americans are deluded barbarians, the tag-team scourge of humanity. How they deride each other is of little consequence when they’re essentially 2 fucking cheeks of the same Zionist arse.
December 12th should not be called a general election but referred to as a massive psychometric test designed to measure how thick the British public are (or how gullible they are if you are feeling in a more generous mood).
I accept there is a minority whose interests coincide with Johnson and the corporate bum lickers he hangs out with, but for most people another 5 years of austerity (which is all the tories are offering) is like signing your own death warrant.
How is that so many Brits deny the reality of their own experience based on an endless stream of fake news spun by the Guardian, and the rest of the liars in the MSM?
The English particularly have a most peculiar and very strong Stockholm syndrome with regards to their rulers. It feels times have not changed too much since Henry v111. That there is a strong chance Johnson could win is a very serious indictment of a lack of critical thinking skills and self respect. It seems to me like the education system is largely to blame but to watch the fawning, the adoration and the cap doffing is both revolting and sad in equal measure.
Heaven help us all including Wales Scotland and NI if these monsters are returned to power. There is no hope the dense and full of herself without any reason Swinson will offer Labour any support. I have rarely come across anyone quite so off putting as her. I find her deeply offensive, almost as much as Johnson himself. Not quite sure what the Libdems were thinking of in terms of trying to claw back a reputation since that lovely little Rose Garden moment.
The monsters don’t need to be returned to power in Britain because the monsters are never removed from it.
Haven’t you learned that yet, dear voter?
You can be as condescending and supercilious as you like however the fact remains that under Labour, even NuLabour life was a lot easier for your average person. I have worked as an Social Services Occupational Therapist in many areas of South West England. We had zero problems ordering equipment for the disabled, elderly etc, zero problem getting urgent assistance for those with mental health issues. All operated smoothly until 2011 when the metaphorical shit hit their fan and suddenly the funding dried up. No point in ordering anything except the very basics, the Tories with Libdem assistance destroyed a great system to ensure your mum or dad, your grandfather, grandmother did not have to lie in their own faeces waiting for a carer to save them this appalling indignity.
I have no time for Blair nor most of the PLP so supporting Corbyn is a choice one makes in order to save the countries poor and ill from complete devastation.
Did you know pressure sores from incontinence are virtually impossible to get rid of. Did you know the bulk of disabled and ill get 15mins daily if they are lucky to get to a commode, have a nourishing meal prepared, have their soiled bedclothes changed and countless other necessary tasks to make a life in pain comforting.
A Corbyn government would change life completely for our most vulnerable but you really couldn’t give a shit about these little incidentals could you because you want to argue to change a reality that at grass root levels is unchangeable.
Facts are bloody facts so for any other twat unable or unwilling to face the appalling abuse of this Tory government.
“It feels times have not changed too much since Henry v111” https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/boris-johnsons-19-new-powers-will-kill-democracy/
I daresay history abounds in tests to prove sturdy palpitating manliness – you know: eating a live bull’s heart, macheteing a neighbouring tribe – that kind of thing. Well, on the topic of that English cap-doffing royalist urine drinking mode, here’s the ultimate test of machismo: Open up Roger Scruton’s “England: An Elegy” at any page, read a line and try not to barf.
Unfortunately, the British public are subjected to brainwashing from a very early age. Why else do they tolerate a small cabal of parasitic aristocratic groupings to live off the fat of the land. Why have they tolerated a system which allows a party with the most seats, yet not the most votes, to govern. In most other countries this would not be acceptable. Moreover, why have they rolled over to allow the country to tolerate 40 years of a foreign ideology which has created one of the most unequal, unfair and unjust societies in a modern industrialised European country whilst neither the French or the Germans would tolerate this skewing of democracy for a nano second.
I hope this article is reading the mood of the British people correctly.
But I don’t believe Murdoch is an admirer of Corbyn. To be such, Murdoch would have to turn against his own oligarch class, and a class traitor is the one thing he is not.
This week, in Australia, we have seen his national propaganda sheet, offensively named “The Australian”, run a front-page smear against the Greens blaming them for the bushfire disaster engulfing much of the East of the country.
Desperate to distract its readers from the conservatives’ inaction on climate change, the paper screams that the Greens are responsible, because they oppose controlled burning. A lie, but lying is routine among much of the media and political classes – particularly on the climate. And even if it were not a lie, a party which is not in office in any territory, state or federal government, or any local government in a bushfire zone, could not implement such a policy. Not that such a subtlety would occur to Murdoch’s dumbed-down readership.
Murdoch’s mealy mouthed maggots are in panic mode.
Their slimy LIES have been overtaken by the living, fire breathing, Truth.
Rebuilding should only be attempted once the bulk of the damage has been inflicted, ….. not as its just beginning .
Give B.J. a chance to at least finish it off …fully, before anyone tries rebuilding anything worth saving.
If BJ finishes it off, there will be nothing left worth saving.
People don’t want to be burdened with facts.
My point exactly. I think your rather there already.
I don’t think Murdoch detests the class system. Would he have chosen to hire Earl Spencer’s city house for getting married to the Texan woman if he did? He pretends. He was rejected as a colonial but would have so much liked to be accepted.
I hope Corbyn focuses on one or two things to improve in that term. If one tries to rectify all faults in one go, nothing gets done.
He’s a fucking joke and a weakling he should have booted blairites out of his party but no being a bit of a Trotskyist he’s a fucking gimp and controlled opposition who can’t and won’t make changes because he’s a coward and scared of the capitalist class
Morning John, what a heartening cheerful comment over coffee first thing in the morning.I was down in the Foodbank on Tuesday, the number of people needing assistance has soared. Did you know instances of children in the U.K. developing Pneumonia, Rickets etc has been now documented by the NHS, TB will be arriving soon as the poorer sections of our communities undergo further deprivation and abuse.
The only person you are letting down is yourself. If you cannot empathise and are unmoved by such suffering as has been obvious to us all since 10yrs it says very little for your obviously very flawed character.
Yup. He’s just another sheepdog … like Bernie over in the US.
Definitely true of Bernie. To this Yank, Corbyn seems a good measure more sincere… but it’s not clear that it actually matters, heading as he does a party full of Blairites that hate him as much as his opponents do. How much can he actually accomplish even if he’s the greatest guy in the world?
Always a supporter of Labour and its policies, (until Iraq),
I became a member in 2015 when Corbyn won.
I left this year when he reverted to an effectively ‘remain’ position.
He was dragooned into this by Abbot and McDonnell.
He cannot regain the rail and utilities within the EU!
He will not get into No10. The elite will put him under a bus, or do a Skripal on him.
Indeed – the EU is also about privatisations of everything so that we may return to Dickensian circumstances.
The privatisation obligations (of the utilities first) come from the Washington Consensus as part of the IMF. How to shake off their imposts, nobody knows yet. That is also where the hostilities for China and Russia come from; they have paused and reversed some privatisations because the electorate likes to have control over them, not a boardroom controlled by BlackRock directors. The world is not Black and White. Not everything must be privatised, not everything must be controlled by the public/electorate.
Exactly. Why is it that so many self-described ‘leftists’ can’t understand what’s really at stake with Brexit?
There is NOTHING stopping him from nationalising the utilities, nothing, you only have to look at France, Germany , Belgium, Netherlands etc mostly all nationalised utilities including most of ours ,run by them.
You are absolutely correct but we are no longer allowed to be right, facts must always be confused with fiction in our new Orwellian world.
From Corporate Europe Observatory – November 2017
As follows:
”Concerns have been aroused that a new wave of privatisation could be prepared after the European Commission asked the well-known accountancy firm KPMG to study the “operational and fiscal challenges” which state-owned enterprises place on the public purse. The contract, due to conclude at the end of this month, raises many questions.
The Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs has awarded a contract worth €800,000 to global accountancy and consultancy firm KPMG to study state-owned enterprises across EU member states, including to encourage “the adoption of best practices regarding the management (including the restructuring and/or privatisation)…”. But this contract, due to conclude at the end of this month, raises many questions. Will this project reinforce the myth that the private sector is more efficient and therefore better at running public services than the public sector, a myth which is held by many at the top of the EU? Will the EU use this project to ‘recommend’ further structural reforms or privatisation processes on EU member states? And is this study even compatible with the EU’s duty to remain neutral when it comes to the ownership of assets, as set out in the EU Treaty?”
I could go on further but the point is already made. And we can see where this is going: the EU’s entire raison d’etre is the implementation of neo-liberal economic and social policy right across the continent. And they will carry on this policy relentlessly. Vote Labour/Remain and this is what you are going to get in Hotel California. The idea of the EU with a human face is BS, but it’s toxic permanence is real.
check this out.https://youtu.be/CXFjp8w6oWs
Sorry Geoff, there is much stopping JC re-nationalising once State-owned businesses, most of it is wrapped up in the Competition clauses of the Lisbon Treaty. Now, a lawyer peer has said its possible under present EU law to re-nationalise the railways, but this could not be a reversion back to British Rail days as you now have to set up two state-owned businesses to run track and rail, and, if a private bidder offer more for less, said bid must be looked at, as such, you’ll have loads of Richard Branson styles cases all backed by EU Competition law. Gas, Electricity and Telecom’s is even more complex, so, please stop with the pretence, particularly given when you mention State owned Utilities existing within the EU, you fail to mention none were actually hived off to the private sector, if they had been, you’d have a EU looking much the same as the UK with crap infrastructure.
So, lets do stick to facts and lets be honest, rather than hyping something that has not happened on the Continent, namely, wholesale privatisation as in the UK, and all of this crap the EU has embraced in the Lisbon Treaty – if you want radical change, you need to Exit the EU and Exit NATO.
Certainly not looking for an argument, but how you think it will be easier out of the EU is anyone’s guess, we presently have the most right wing government in the history of the country, so it won’t happen under these fascists, it doesn’t appear to be attractive under Labour according to the polls, so how do you envisage them being taken back into public ownership?
Geoff,
I just pointed out some home truths, truths Remainiacs don’t seem to want to inform the general public – I suggest people actually start reading the Lisbon Treaty, understand all fiscal constraints and the monetary policy set out in its pages, together with a few revisions from 2009-2011, and then explain to those who actually believe in State Ownership of our strategic industries, why under the constraints of the Lisbon Treaty, it ain’t possible, so, if you desire radical change, a change that will never come from Brussel’s we must look at our own people, tell them the truth, tell them sacrifice will be necessary and get on with it.
And that means voting for the only alternative to the neoliberal madness on offer at the moment, basically vote Labour, and I state this despite having huge reservations about the trajectory Labour has followed since its electoral gains of 2017, when, it was not perceived as a Remain Party and it was not actually perceived as a Party hosting racists.
So lard arse Johnson, Lord Snooty ,Ugly Patel, Redwood, etc all think it’s a really good idea to leave the EU because it will be better for the average worker? I don’t thinks so , those two hings aren’t compatible, we’ll hear the screams when the working time directive gets repealed , and everyone who is covered by it , will no longer be entitled to 28 days holiday a year, and these bastards will do it, I’ve always voted Labour and always will, but Corbyn as a leader is 100% useless.
Geoff,
What planet do you live on when you fervently believe that most gains made by British workers are the result of membership of the Club of Rome – hate to break it to you, but most things we take for granted today we actually fought for and were in place in the 1960’s, courtesy of a Labour Administration and strong Trades Unionism.
As for the much vaunted EU Time Directive, you are aware that many businesses, among them Yank Bank’s operating in the Square Mile oblige workers to opt out of the arrangement, failure to do so mean’s they don’t get a job they yearn for, although, this fact applies to many sectors who’s workers are exploited utterly, and that’s with us within the confines of the EU – many EU employers in the UK are most happy to exploit these facts, as my own brother can attest too in his own reactions with three German businesses over the past 20 years the UK’s Steel making industry.
Next you’ll be informing us the EU abolished Serfdom in Russia or slavery itself, this despite the fact, what with the destruction of Libya, that modern day slavery is actually increasing and many of these poor souls find themselves slaving away in London and elsewhere in the EU.
God man, the way Remainiacs protest one would believe the UK was a most uncivilised nation prior to joining the Club of Rome, indeed, its as if actual History began in 1973 and everything else is a figment of our imagination.
I’m well aware of the conditions we had in the 60s didn’t last did it how is the EU got anything to do with that? the weakest trade union movement in western European can you tell me how many national strikes we won? yes, you’re right, you tick the opt out box on an employment form you don’t get the job, how is that the fault of the EU? it will be perfect for the likes of you IF we ever leave, they hammer us, all because people like you didn’t see it coming,we have the longest worked hours, one of the worst holiday entitlements, worst benefit system, worst redundancy payment and you think good old hairy arse Johnson is going to reverse it eh? go and make yourself a nice cup of coffee and have a sit down, what are you reading the Mail?
Geoff,
Unlike you, I’ve kept a close eye on the development of the EC/EU since 1990, it was part of my academic journey – mature student at Uni, and then, I actually worked with the three major Institutions of the EU for quite a while with regards finial services regulation and, funnily enough, monetary policy, which, as you are no doubt aware, has actually caused a great deal of economic misery outside of 5 Euro member states.
Now, as I issue zero support for any institution globally riddled with Neoliberal Economic prescriptions, what on earth makes you think I’ll issue support to the EU (neoliberalism is written in stone within the text of the Lisbon Treaty), the IMF, World Bank or Westminster. Indeed, even McDonnell can’t seem to move away from the constraints imposed by neoliberalism and fiscal/monetary language associated with neoliberalism.
Allegedly, I’m a fucking Tory though in your book, this despite the fact of being a life long Socialist and Trades Unionist. In short, I don’t worship at the alter of Brussels’ neither did many of my political influences from Nye Bevin to Barbara Castle – were they avid Daily Mail readers too by any chance, or, in your twisted reasoning, the EU somehow is a Socialist bastion, this despite the fact, its acknowledged it governs for business and not the bloody people. I’ll stick with the People and not the bosses thank you very much and won’t sell out my PRINCIPLES for a sniff of power by trying to kiss the backsides of the Islington Middle Classes.
Barbara Castle eh? oh yes I remember her , wasn’t she the Labour minister who tried to reign in what little bi tof strength we had with her so called ‘in place of strife’ yes I remember it well, won’t sell out my PRINCIPLES for a sniff of power by trying to kiss the backsides of the Islington Middle Classes. no idea what that is supposed to mean
Geoff, have you actually read the White Paper that Ms Castle oversaw, namely, In Place of Strife, which was an effort by Ms Castle not to rein in the power of Union’s, but rather emulate the more harmonious industrial relations found in West Germany, whereby Bosses and Employees (Unions) actually worked together. And it actually worked as West German’s living standards improved dramatically and inequality was rather low when compared to the UK or USA during the so called ‘West German Economic Miracle’. West Germany also benefitting greatly by being a founding member of the Treaty of Rome, which was nice.
Now, many historians look upon this document produced by Castle and her team and wonder in amazement why it was never adopted, for had it been adopted and legislated upon we’d never have witnessed the economic carnage of Thatcher, whom, lest anyone forget, was one of the principle movers in the creation of the Single Market, seems she was a bit weak on the political ramifications though, hence her Bruges Speech.
Of course its all conjecture, but one thing is not conjecture, namely, had it not been for the Winter of Discontent, which most of us posting here lived through, we’d have never seen that God awful woman Thatcher as our Prime Minister.
And, Barbara Castle would have made a fine Labour Prime Minister, as would have several of her peers within the Party. Still, let’s critique old Barbara shall we, who, never in a million years would have embraced anything that stank of neoliberalism.
Winter of discontent? Oh that cliche the capitalists roll out , I was quite content pity we don’t have more, I’m 74. an din most of those years the EU has not been a thought in mt mind, what troubles me now is the thought of these fascist bastards getting another five years in government, aided and abetted by you leavers, it will never ever change after five years and you should know that, because the next time come one comes close to forming a socialist government, they will simply refer it to 2019 and tell you people don’t want it, but dream on , I respect you views, but it doesn’t mean you’re right.
That’s part of the problem. It hasn’t been a thought in anyone’s mind, including Remainers like you.
Maastricht, Lisbon, let ’em come, sign first, read afterwards, or better still, don’t read them at all.
I bet you go to bed at night really upset and in deep thought about who we can trade with in the coming years,maybe drop off after a couple of minutes and realise you’ve been take for a ride EVERYTHING you’ve been promised hasn’t happened, we hold all the cards, they need us more than we need them,we can have a vanilla slice whilst eating at the same time, £35.000.000 a week for the NHS , the German car makers banging on the door appealing for a deal , the easiest trade deal in human history,clause 24 will allow us to trade with the EU for another 10 years,brexit means brexit, do or die we#ll be out on the 31st,no british PM would ever put a border down the Irish sea,etc etc etc and you still,believe them , it really is remarkable how the rich brainwash the poor to keep them in power, never mind you will realise when it’s too late.
And just to add, far from being a winter of discontent, it was a winter when working class people stood together, something to be proud of, but obviously you don’t see it that way do you, tory voter somewhere there
check this out https://youtu.be/CXFjp8w6oWs
Because they have never been privatised.
Seamus, you been down to your local foodbank? You been out supporting the undernourished, the hungry children, the desperation of people with severe mental health problems? My guess is no you have not so maybe a period of introspection might help you understand what is really at stake under 5yrs of Johnson.
Sorry, but I think that counts as an appeal to the emotions. Do you think that Jeremy Corbyn will remove the need for foodbanks overnight? Or at any time within the (let’s be generous) possibly 5 years of his first term?
Davemass. If you left this year after the trouble Corbyn has had in defending the people, the disenfranchised then you are not worth bothering about.
JC 4 PM in the FUp UK!!
JC 4 PM in the FUp UK.
Dinkum’s formula sums it up in 7 words: Corbyn, best option in a rotten situation.
He’s not though, is he? He represents the electorates passivity and obedience to the corporate green revolution. Validation of the GND is our signing a suicide pact with the corporations. This is the worst possible option that just shows how deeply unconscious people really are. Time after time the people choose war, the racist imperialist dominative overpower over the rest of the world, inflicting untold cruelty and suffering, environmental degradation and destabilisation, waste and sink pollution chosen over freedom. We manifest untold suffering in the world: the life-blind apologism for is what bad faith bourgeois socialism really is.
And then we revel In false consciousness narrative construction about how woke and compassionate we are. Real compassion extends to those the blindsighted bourgeoisie – that’s us – fuck over first, not last. Real compassion extends to building a world that is equitable for all: every last blade of grass and microbe. We all function in good health together: or not at all. The awareness of which politics is completely devoid of.
This article represents the pathocracy of political normalcy: and just how far we will go to drive a psychotic agenda of growth for self-absorbed greed. I did try and warn what will happen if we try to go “net zero” carbon neutral by 2030. This is actually a mass hallucinatory psychotic episode which is being represented as “normal”. We are very very ill if we are normalized to this. Very ill and on the verge of breakdown. And we chose to be here. There is no one else to blame. We’re fully allied to the corporate green revolution now. Let’s see where that takes us. I already know so I can make my assessment with future hindsight. Everyone else applies what is called “steep inter-temporal discounting”. They do not give an actual fuck about what misery their choices export abroad and into the future. We are really plumbing the unconscious depths of bourgeois bad-faith now.
I rejoined the Labour Party in order to vote for Corbyn in 2015 having left in 2003 when the psycho Blair decided to abandon all reason, sanity and any element of good judgement. I have always said that I will support him to the very end and I have stuck to that.
In the past 4yrs it has been very very difficult for the original Corbyn supporters, about 400k who have witnessed the shocking abuse he has been subjected to. We his supporters have also been vilified in the U.K. press at every turn. The extent of the lies, smears, insinuations has been truly eye opening. That the Guardian whom I have zero respect for, has joined the DM amongst others and has been one of the worst offenders is to say the least at this point in the Guardians continuing decline into irrelevance, not surprising. Once the Edward Snowdon exposure was over the Guardian, always a hypocrite, joined the Secret Services in their abuse and treachery of the British people.
It is no secret Corbyn comes from a socialist family, grew up in a home determined to do its best to help and support Jewish people in the U.K. after the holocaust. That this Antisemitic smear has to a large extent worked is a sign of the ferocity with which it was enforced with the bulk of the PLP supporting it, knifing Corbyn in the back daily. Luciana Berger said recently she was made physically ill from the extent of the anti Semitism in the Labour Party. She has lied, smeared, played the victim to the press and they have loved her. Anti Semitism is actually 0.5 % of the Labour Party and to date only 25 people have been thrown out.
My respect for Corbyn has increased if anything as he battles on regardless, ever faithful and unwavering in his integrity he has shown the British establishment up in their greed, avariciousness, psychopathy and ever more determined to attach the U.K. to US imperialism, a faithful pathetic slave to the whims of the now failing US with a major recession on its way. The word for the Secret Services, many of the PLP and the now obviously corrupted MSM is treason against the people they are supposed to serve.
I hope and pray we make it over the line, if we do not the U.K. is finished for at least a generation because Johnson is just about the worst individual alive and working in Westminster, he does not understand anything other than treachery, lies and the complete abandonment of any principles whatsoever.
Observing the “up” and “down” stats there, do I perceive the action of the “itchy finger of Crispy” ? Or is he “Bonney” in disguise ? It will have to remain a mystery !
Lucky you Betrayed Planet, I too join the Party again having joined the Corbyn bandwagon, and was booted out of said Party after 8 weeks by order of one Iain McNicol and his cohort of anti-democrats. Now, understandably, one had hoped the Leftist Witchhunts would have decreased once Formby was installed as general Secretary, the sad fact is the Purge continues apace. Indeed, the only reason you ain’t booted out of the Party is because you don’t use Social Media under your real identity. Putting it bluntly, Freedom of Speech within the Party today is at a all time low. Obviously, I’ll still be voting Labour, but had I lived where George Galloway is standing, or Christopher Williamson is standing, I’d have cast my vote their way, and the reason for this is quite simple, both are Socialists who respect democratic outcomes – if only we could say this for the bulk of the PLP and those actually running the Party, which ain’t Corbyn I’m afraid.
All-italics makes it difficult and even painful to read for older eyes. 🙁
Plus it just looks wrong
Formatting error. Fixed now.
At least the italics are blacker than the serifs.
I shot the serif (but I swear it was in self defence).
Bob and Eric will forgive you
It will be painful in more respects than that if this proxy of “The Donald” gets it “done”.