British Politics

[soon]

48 minutes ago, Graeme said:

Probably will be when things start to get really bad and it's absolutely too late to do anything about it.

In 2020 food cost for the average Canadian household is projected to increase $500. And the authors of the report point to the Climate Crisis as a main factor. I hope this will be the kick in the ass that people need. Blows apart the 'costs to much to act' propaganda too. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-change-food-price-increase-report-1.5383507

Edited December 13, 2019 by soon

[bucketfoot]

2 hours ago, soon said:

11 years to address the climate crisis. But you lot prioritized Brexit instead. So what you've done is mandated your government to focus on establishing new trade deals instead of addressing the greatest existential emergency of an age. And whereas new trade deals could be green (with enough other greening of your economy). But to do this you have chosen to toss out a bunch of ecologically informed MPs and have a Conservative seek out new trade deals. All but assuring that said deals wont meet the green needs of this climate emergency.

Way to monumentally miss the point.  

Cheer up, soon. On the upside, Lisa Nandy retained her seat.

New Labour leader, perhaps?

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

My new MP looks like Clarence Boddicker from RoboCop,

Can you fly, Bobby?

 

 

[soon]

6 minutes ago, bucketfoot said:

Cheer up, soon. On the upside, Lisa Nandy retained her seat.

New Labour leader, perhaps?

Thats my girl! Good point, best to be 'glass had full' about it. 

Nandy would make an incredible Labour Leader! 

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 hour ago, soon said:

Thats exactly what the Green New Deal is about. Klein too. Labours platform wasnt outside of that philosophy either. If you dont know thats how we're organized than I dont know what to tell you. 

 

I'm sorry, but this is a video full of nothing but platitudes.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 hour ago, Graeme said:

Probably will be when things start to get really bad and it's absolutely too late to do anything about it.

Well you don't own people's votes. You've got to go out and get them and sell them on a popular message. I'm seeing a lot of insults at "those idiots and rubes who voted for Johnson." Well what does it say about you when you lose to a guy like that?

[soon]

4 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

I'm sorry, but this is a video full of nothing but platitudes.

Sanders cosponsored the Green New Deal. Are you suggesting that this life long, successful politician, and sitting Senator doesnt know how to get things done in US Federal Govt? (The lie his opponents tell...)

Furthermore, The Squads election isnt a platitude, its a reality. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by soon

[Dazey]

Boris' victory speech after winning his seat this morning. The guy behind him is called Lord Buckethead!  

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Dazey

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

3 minutes ago, soon said:

Sanders cosponsored the Green New Deal. Are you suggesting that this life long, successful politician, and sitting Senator doesnt know how to get things done in US Federal Govt? (The lie his opponents tell...)

Furthermore, The Squads election isnt a platitude, its a reality. 

The problem with the green new deal is it's lack of specificity. The plan itself doesn't propose any specific technologies or sources of energy. It doesn't say anything about immigration or population growth. We need to get specific if we're being serious.

Now, I'm even more disappointed in the Republicans for not coming up with their own plan. This is a great opportunity that is being wasted. 

[SoulMonster]

9 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

Well you don't own people's votes. You've got to go out and get them and sell them on a popular message. I'm seeing a lot of insults at "those idiots and rubes who voted for Johnson." Well what does it say about you when you lose to a guy like that?

We? We didn't lose to a guy like that, it was Corbyn who lost to Johnson. We can still refer to those who voted for Johnson as idiots and rubes.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

9 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

We? We didn't lose to a guy like that, it was Corbyn who lost to Johnson. We can still refer to those who voted for Johnson as idiots and rubes.

And right on cue. Those people are just going to double down on voting for people like Johnson.

I'm actually not happy over the moon about this. Working class whites are going to be on the conservative plantation in the UK, just like they are in the United States.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Basic_GnR_Fan

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

If the majority had voted for a party that was based around one and only one issue, Brexit, then of course that would be more indicative of what the people wanted on that issue. But that is not the case here, the Conservatives, who got the most votes now and more than in 2015, is not a pure Brexit party, so off-handedly dismissing that more people could have voted Tories because they simply want conservative politics, or because Labour failed to arouse voters, or because of other election dynamics, or that some of these voters did so for tribal reasons, is simply a logical fallacy. Not everybody who went to the urns did so to affect Brexit. Thinking otherwise is at best splendidly naive.

You cannot equate the general election results with some kind of perfect assessment of the public's opinion on Brexit. It isn't that simple. We just don't know the exact reasons why people rallied around the Conservatives. Some (maybe many) did it because they want to leave the EU. Some did it because they found Labour horridly detestable and thought that 4 years of Corbyn was worse than Brexit. Some did it because they always vote conservative. Some did it because they like Boris Johnson. Some did it because they want a fiscally conservative direction. And although it is not unlikely that some votes shifted to Conservatives because of Brexit, you have no way of figuring out how many they were. Just assuming they are all leave votes is simply unintellectual. It is letting your own wishes affect your conclusions.

It could be that the result is indicative of a majority now being for Brexit (despite the poll from late October suggesting otherwise), but you have no way of knowing this (which should be such an accustomed feeling for you that I am sure is why you fail to question your rationale). 

As I have said before, my argument here is on the methodological flaw of assuming that this result means that the majority has shifted sufficiently. I am not taking a stance on what the public now wants re: Brexit. We don't know that until it is actually proven that the percentage of the new votes for the Conservatives that are caused by a desire to leave the EU is large enough to shift the majority from Remain to Leave. It goes against my every fibre to confuse such assumptions with reality. But of course, you have never seemed to be encumbered by an urge to be correct. I, on the other hand, will make sure to not make a fool of myself by waiting until a proper poll has been conducted. I am much more comfortable appearing to be stubbornly hard to move with arguments of emotion than risking being wrong. 

I'm not disputing much of this, but there is little doubt that the level of Boris's victory combined with the nature of the Tory manifesto, centered around one campaign slogan to ''get Brexit done'', has given support to arguments against this swing from leave to remain which you seem to feel exists, not to mention the fact that the Liberal Democrats utterly bombed. There is a method of measuring the ''Brexit factor'' actually, by correlating the polling with the results of the 2016 referendum. 

There will be multiple analyses of this date no doubt over the next few days. 

[DieselDaisy]

The London millionaire luvvies, the vacuous celebrities and Momentum Twitterati, hideous people like Hugh Grant, Steve Coogen, Irving Walsh and Gary Lineker, have to realise that telling people they're ''ignorant'', ''misinformed'', ''racist'' or worse (''gammon'') simply because they have a different opinion on the European Union to them, is not conducive to democratic debate, and I suspect deeply damaged their own cause in that Brexiteers become more entrenched having seen their opinions and personalities so belittled on social media and liberal platforms such as the BBC and Guardian. I bet a good percentage of Boris's vote consisted of people such as this. 

[bucketfoot]

25 minutes ago, Dazey said:

Boris' victory speech after winning his seat this morning. The guy behind him is called Lord Buckethead!  

 

Count Binface and Yace Interplanetary Time Lord Yogenstein as well.

[Dazey]

9 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

The London millionaire luvvies, the vacuous celebrities and Momentum Twitterati, hideous people like Hugh Grant, Steve Coogen, Irving Walsh and Gary Lineker, have to realise that telling people they're ''ignorant'', ''misinformed'', ''racist'' or worse (''gammon'') simply because they have a different opinion on the European Union to them, is not conducive to democratic debate, and I suspect deeply damaged their own cause in that Brexiteers become more entrenched having seen their opinions and personalities so belittled on social media and liberal platforms such as the BBC and Guardian. I bet a good percentage of Boris's vote consisted of people such as this. 

Redcar went blue! Fucking Redcar? It’s never been a Tory seat in its history.  

[DieselDaisy]

10 minutes ago, Dazey said:

Redcar went blue! Fucking Redcar? It’s never been a Tory seat in its history.  

These Toffs will build Waitroses and Selfridges for us and lead us into the promised land.

 

PS

And I for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves!

Edited December 13, 2019 by DieselDaisy

[soon]

37 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

The problem with the green new deal is it's lack of specificity. The plan itself doesn't propose any specific technologies or sources of energy.

Your point was that ecologically minded people allegedly havent taken into account bread and butter issues that will mobilize voters. Im saying that is wrong. The Green New Deal and any other robust model to combat the climate crisis is rooted in class consciences to a degree not often seen in your nations history. 

See, in the climate crisis economists and climate scientists have unmasked that capitalism is the crisis. Capitalism attacks the planet and it attacks the working class (which will include the poor for my purposes). Economists and climate scientists expose the material contradictions of capitalism - It promises prosperity, but is reliant on poverty. It promises a good life, while destroying the environmental means to a good life. So the solution is to address the problem as it exists, as a whole. Even given the clearly defined material reality, we still need to be intentional in our class conscience. Because we have collectively internalized the promises of capitalism and its dire hierarchy. But ending poverty is philosophically and materially inseparable from ending ecocide.

 

[SoulMonster]

42 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

And right on cue. Those people are just going to double down on voting for people like Johnson.

Your argument is that people vote for morons out of spite?

[SoulMonster]

38 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I'm not disputing much of this, but there is little doubt that the level of Boris's victory combined with the nature of the Tory manifesto, centered around one campaign slogan to ''get Brexit done'', has given support to arguments against this swing from leave to remain which you seem to feel exists, not to mention the fact that the Liberal Democrats utterly bombed. There is a method of measuring the ''Brexit factor'' actually, by correlating the polling with the results of the 2016 referendum. 

There will be multiple analyses of this date no doubt over the next few days. 

Sure, but there will always be a substantial uncertainty is such analyses. I will await a new poll before concluding in any direction.

Hopefully, the majority has shifted towards Leave again because then Brexit will be properly anchored with the majority of the population. Worst case scenario is really a Brexit when current polls indicate that it is against the wish of the majority of the people. That would be unfortunate. And such a thing would be unfortunate regardless of what the issue is, Brexit or any other.

 

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 minute ago, soon said:

Your point was that ecologically minded people allegedly havent taken into account bread and butter issues that will mobilize voters. Im saying that is wrong. The Green New Deal and any other robust model to combat the climate crisis is rooted in class consciences to a degree not often seen in your nations history. 

See, in the climate crisis economists and climate scientists have unmasked that capitalism is the crisis. Capitalism attacks the planet and it attacks the working class (which will include the poor for my purposes). Economists and climate scientists expose the material contradictions of capitalism - It promises prosperity, but is reliant on poverty. It promises a good life, while destroying the environmental means to a good life. So the solution is to address the problem as it exists, as a whole. Even given the clearly defined material reality, we still need to be intentional in our class conscience. Because we have collectively internalized the promises of capitalism and its dire hierarchy. But ending poverty is philosophically and materially inseparable from ending ecocide.

 

My critique is they're not being specific enough. If the green new deal is what you want to turn people's heads, put some specifics in there that people can sink their teeth into.

You're talking to someone who, if we're going to have capitalism, wants a highly regulated form of it (and that would me get called a socialist in this country). So you can skip the capitalism is shit arguments because I largely already agree lol.

[DieselDaisy]

Nobody gives a shit about the environment when you're eating from a food bank or being knifed in the back. These, environmentalism, are middle class causes. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by DieselDaisy

[soon]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

Nobody gives a shit about the environment when you're eating from a food bank or being knifed in the back. These are middle class causes. 

Utter bollocks. 

Also, what on earth is wrong with class solidarity?? 

Edited December 13, 2019 by soon

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

7 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Your argument is that people vote for morons out of spite?

They absolutely do. If your media does nothing but insult certain classes of people as ignorant rubes, they're going to vote for the guy throwing bombs at said media. If you don't understand the psychology of this you'd be best steering clear of political issues and stick to academia.

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, soon said:

Utter bollocks. 

Where I live nobody gives a shit about any of this stuff. 

[soon]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

Where I live nobody gives a shit about any of this stuff. 

Start handing ou life rafts, maybe that'll drive the point home? haha

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

They absolutely do. If your media does nothing but insult certain classes of people as ignorant rubes, they're going to vote for the guy throwing bombs at said media. If you don't understand the psychology of this you'd be best steering clear of political issues and stick to academia.

Of course people might entrench themselves in their stupid opinions if people point out that they are stupid -- because after all, that's what you would expect stupid people to do --  but I don't think it is such a pronounced mechanism as you might think and I also don't think the media typically does that to people. It is a fine balancing act to do, though, in the USA people complain that all certain media do is make fun of Trump, but on the other hand he does a lot of ridiculous things.