European Right Wing

[edyzmedieval]

Right, (see what I did there?) I want to initiate a discussion on the European right wing / populist movement that has been spurred onwards in the past two years, especially by events such as Brexit, the Trump presidential victory and future events that will eventually shape up, some in due course immediately (Italian Referendum), some a bit more down the road (French Election).

But clearly not limited to those. :book:

Most European countries have had considerable problems internally due to the refugee crisis, most of it due to internal backlash against the whole "open door" policy of the European Union. While most people speculate this to be the fuel for the rise of the right wing, populist movements, simply putting the focus on the refugee crisis does not explain the full picture, particularly given the fact that some of these movements have been active for a looong time now. Most of them predate the refugee crisis, and some were active even 20 - 30 years ago.

What caused them to rise and take once more centre stage?

We all know Europe had a number of right wing movements which some of them turned rather... disagreeable. I am sarcastic of course here, because some of them were beyond horrific. But given Europe's rather distaste for right wing, populist policies, especially during the years after the war, the return of right wing ideals has rather alarmed many and has caused quite a few questions. Let's be clear however on one thing - modern right wing is different than the xenophobic, racist and extremist ideals of the 1930's. We're a long way from there. But this has alarmed many people, despite the obvious differences.

Why? How come right wing movements gained traction once more?

Let the intellectual debate begin. :bow:

[Greyblades]

It's a simple vaccum; when only one party or section of political thought are presenting solutions to widespread problems people turn to them and as the problem's effects increase so does the popularity of those parties who become, or are seen to become the only sane choice.

The left mostly refuses to acknowledge the great problems of the age are actually problems and are thus allowing the reemergence of the right by being willfully blind.

[Strike For The South]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

[Montmorency]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

Compared to the manifestly conservative nature of the American "revolutionaries", who only in 1776 came to accept what British think-pieces had been predicting about the colonies since 1696, and who retroactively assigned their same dawdling selves a coherent republican identity in their post-war histories.

Anyway, I disagree. Leftists simply present too many competing alternatives. For conservatives, so to speak, there is no alternative. That's where the irony comes in.

[Beskar]

The left has a tendcy to tear down social mores and communities. That's why it's ok to import millions of refugees with no plan. Contential Europe has no identity outside of the superficial.

With a narrative like that, you can attribute everything bad to the left It is really easy to flip them too...

Given the 'left' has the tendency of creating communities. See: Trade Unions, Cooperatives, and other organisations which work on the concept of better together. On the otherhand, the right wants to divide and conquer, by empowering the elite and oppressing the masses, saying about how the individual should compete in the race to the top, stepping over their neighbour.

Given that Individualism was a push from the right-wing capitalism and Thatcherite policies. Sell off social housing reserves at a low value, in order to enrich themselves short-term, whilst making the greater population poorer by denying accessible accommodation for the poorer sectors, driving up deprivation.

Given left-wing tendency to establish new social mores based upon unity and equality, tearing down desive 'traditional' policies like black people to the back of the bus and segregated schools. They also removed laws which the right wanted in place like chemical castration of homosexuals and labelled mentally ill, and instead advocating accepting homosexuals as equal partners, and even allowing them to declare their love in marriage.

Syria is going through a bloody civil war, and the country is basically leveled ash-heap. The left dares to suggest we should try to help and support other people who are fleeing for their lives, being accepting of your fellow man, woman, and child. This is instead of having gun boats shooting and sinking them, establishing walls with machine gun posts, to gun down women and children like the right want.

[Kagemusha]

Im calling them populist conservatives, rather then using simplistic expressions like "left" and "right". The reason is that they are not necessarily from right, but can come from leftist circles as well. Of course unless one is not knowledgeable of social democracy, such might sound strange. But i am certain that at least in central and northern Europe the supporters of this group are against liberal economical policies as much as "leftist" idealism.

In any case i think lot of their support spring from traditional values, resistance towards change and wish for things to become like they were. Turning the clock back so does speak.The good questions is were things that great to begin with in the past? I agree that there is some truth in their narrative. In many instances the change has been rather rapid the last decades and also somewhat uncontrollable. This applies most of all to global economy, but it is such a beast that cannot hardly be moderated by policies of any single country, no matter how big.

The xenophobic aspect cant be denied, but in this issue , like so many others as well. I think the answer lies in moderation. If new people can be integrated in our societies, there is nothing bad about it. Though i do not agree to multiculturalism and that emigrants should form closed communities based on their countries of origin culture and have issues with interacting with the mainstream of the countries they have emigrated. In a way such behavior resembles the behavior of these populist conservatives and their wish for things to become like they were and such is futile for both groups in the end.

[rory_20_uk]

Any discussion that starts with the monikers right / left is doomed to end in a quagmire of misunderstandings since both labels are trying to cover a vast range of ideologies and it belies the complexity of this.

Are left wingers all Globalists who view every unit of humanity the same? Probably not.
Are all right wingers all Isolationists who would rather ignore everyone the other side of their palisade? Probably not.

Most countries have a history of integrating people into them. There was an interesting programme investigating what happened to Georgian black people in the UK? Short answer - they integrated and interbred until they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Like pretty much every other wave of immigrants historically.

So yes, multi-racial is fine. And accepting people that want to be UK citizens and a part of UK society is fine. Wanting to come here and form an enclave of the "old land" and form another "community" that exists in parallel with what is here is not.

~:smoking:

[Gilrandir]

I want to initiate a discussion on the European right wing / populist movement that has been spurred onwards in the past two years

What caused them to rise and take once more centre stage?



Inability of those at power to address the challenges of today.

I believe that if the Right were at power they wouldn't do that either (too many and too inundating the challenges seem), so the pendulum would swing to the Left as the opposite to those who are not up to the task.

[Montmorency]

Any discussion that starts with the monikers right / left is doomed to end in a quagmire of misunderstandings since both labels are trying to cover a vast range of ideologies and it belies the complexity of this.

Are left wingers all Globalists who view every unit of humanity the same? Probably not.
Are all right wingers all Isolationists who would rather ignore everyone the other side of their palisade? Probably not.

Most countries have a history of integrating people into them. There was an interesting programme investigating what happened to Georgian black people in the UK? Short answer - they integrated and interbred until they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Like pretty much every other wave of immigrants historically.

So yes, multi-racial is fine. And accepting people that want to be UK citizens and a part of UK society is fine. Wanting to come here and form an enclave of the "old land" and form another "community" that exists in parallel with what is here is not.

~:smoking:

At the risk of equivocation, I'd venture a trait of conservatism as requiring numerous interlocking preconditions to be met for the sake of reform or more generally action, a systematic order of operations.

As such, conservatives often act on conditions after the fact, when a situation has overturned them or changed their calculations, but the compensatory tendency after action is retrenchment toward the status quo ante.

[edyzmedieval]

Ability to effectively change policy relies very much on the power of the majority within the population and mandatory within the Parliament itself.

Inability to do some policy changes also boils down the opposition of the left or the right wing parties, depending on what side you are on.

[Sarmatian]

It really boils down to this - when things start going south, people blame anyone they perceive as different.

[edyzmedieval]

Which makes it a position to think about - how can you stop people from drifting over to extremism and to highlight the importance of balance?

[Montmorency]

Which makes it a position to think about - how can you stop people from drifting over to extremism and to highlight the importance of balance?

Come in after things have boiled over?

[Greyblades]

Dont be responsible for the actions that made things go south, that should do it.

[Sarmatian]

Which makes it a position to think about - how can you stop people from drifting over to extremism and to highlight the importance of balance?

Traditionally, it was supposed to the be job of the elite in the country, but at the moment, the elites have been discredited and the prevailing opinion among the unwashed masses is "we're sick of elites and experts, we don't need them!" <makes you wish they'd keep the same attitude when they have a medical procedure done on them and spare us all of their continuous drivel>

So, short of having a new world war with a few hundred million casualties, I'm really not sure.

[Husar]

Traditionally, it was supposed to the be job of the elite in the country, but at the moment, the elites have been discredited and the prevailing opinion among the unwashed masses is "we're sick of elites and experts, we don't need them!" <makes you wish they'd keep the same attitude when they have a medical procedure done on them and spare us all of their continuous drivel>

Some of them already do that, see anti-vaxer movement and all the alternative medicine and healing stuff.

[edyzmedieval]

Come in after things have boiled over?

I don't think that will work out too well - usually when things boil over in politics, something bad happened already.

[Brenus]

I was thinking about reactions to Trump’s election.
The rise of “populism” is due to the failure of the precedent regimes to address their population’s needs. H. Clinton lost because Obama’s failure. Compare the numbers who voted for Obama first season, then the numbers who voted for her.
What people need is a job, a future for their children. What the elites in France, UK and USA offer is TAFTA, CETA and TINA. And the ones like Sanders in USA, Corbyn in UK and Mélenchon in France are at best ignored and when it is impossible to do so, mocked and caricatured, described under the qualifications of “Populist”, “Marxist” and others by the media in general.
And then comes the moment to blame the voters, and to play emotional: Stop thinking, react. Trump is a racist, xenophobe, misogynistic con-artist. True. But when H Clinton was promising more TAFTA, more CETA, more TINA, he was saying they will have jobs.
When every day is a fight, when tomorrow is uncertain thanks to zero-hours contract, of temp contract renewed every 3 months, when you small salary is freeze for years and no prospect to be improved, when the price to your children to get education is increasing, when all the concern of your “leaders” is to break all form of resistance to money makers, more concern by social fraud than by tax evasions and fraud, to make your situation even more difficult by cutting all social protection, to carry-on like before, for whom will you vote? When “elites” choose to ignore the result of elections, lied deliberately and ignored the reality of daily life for their electors, first reaction is abstention, then vote of “Cocktail Molotov” vote, as described by Michael Moore when the possibility to vote of alternative has been eradicate.
Sanders and Corbyn had it. H Clinton’s supporters and Labour’s elites had de facto prohibited their electorate to vote for the candidate they didn’t want. They are doing the same in France. They tried to prevent these candidates even to reach the place where they can be elected, by rewriting the rules when necessary. Same was done much more brutally in the past. You do know why the Islamists took power in countries following the Arab Spring? Because all other forms of protest labelled as “communist” were repressed in blood by corrupted dictatorships supported and trained by our democracies, leaving the field opened for protest to religious fanatics.
The greatest numbers of voters are abstentionist. This should have been the alarm bell.
So, when stability means no job again, some choose chaos. Death is stable, life is chaos. If chaos means they might have a chance to finally have something, they choose chaos.
I read this: they don’t want to be protected when they lose their job, they want a job. And this simple thing has been ignored by all governments for now 30 years. So the ones, even if there is only a remote chance they keep their promises to do so, are better than the ones who even don’t think to build a future for them. And thanks to the “system” (a term which I will not explain here but it describes a complex interactions of “natural” allies, economic, political and media), all other options have been made out of option, the only one left is the “hand grenade”.

[edyzmedieval]

Some well thought out points Brenus, thank you for the post.

There's one thing I was to shine a light on - NAFTA, TAFTA and the rest of the free trade agreements. Protectionism does a lot of harm, and in the case of many products, prices will rise because of protectionist tariffs. The alternative is free trade agreements and free trade within economic blocs.

So how do we do free trade without harming jobs?

[Husar]

I've been saying that for a while, although I was expecting it to happen with someone like Sanders and not Trump...
This is where humanity disappoints me again, I guess.
To me, Sanders is more the "Change together" candidate and Trump the "Change by throwing them under the bus" candidate, although those are very generic terms considering both are willing to steal jobs from poor Chinese workers...
And then it remains to be seen whether Trump wasn't just a trojan horse given that he belongs to the billionaire class himself and may leave a lot of governing to republican establishment politicians.

[Pannonian]

I was thinking about reactions to Trump’s election.
The rise of “populism” is due to the failure of the precedent regimes to address their population’s needs. H. Clinton lost because Obama’s failure. Compare the numbers who voted for Obama first season, then the numbers who voted for her.
What people need is a job, a future for their children. What the elites in France, UK and USA offer is TAFTA, CETA and TINA. And the ones like Sanders in USA, Corbyn in UK and Mélenchon in France are at best ignored and when it is impossible to do so, mocked and caricatured, described under the qualifications of “Populist”, “Marxist” and others by the media in general.
And then comes the moment to blame the voters, and to play emotional: Stop thinking, react. Trump is a racist, xenophobe, misogynistic con-artist. True. But when H Clinton was promising more TAFTA, more CETA, more TINA, he was saying they will have jobs.
When every day is a fight, when tomorrow is uncertain thanks to zero-hours contract, of temp contract renewed every 3 months, when you small salary is freeze for years and no prospect to be improved, when the price to your children to get education is increasing, when all the concern of your “leaders” is to break all form of resistance to money makers, more concern by social fraud than by tax evasions and fraud, to make your situation even more difficult by cutting all social protection, to carry-on like before, for whom will you vote? When “elites” choose to ignore the result of elections, lied deliberately and ignored the reality of daily life for their electors, first reaction is abstention, then vote of “Cocktail Molotov” vote, as described by Michael Moore when the possibility to vote of alternative has been eradicate.
Sanders and Corbyn had it. H Clinton’s supporters and Labour’s elites had de facto prohibited their electorate to vote for the candidate they didn’t want. They are doing the same in France. They tried to prevent these candidates even to reach the place where they can be elected, by rewriting the rules when necessary. Same was done much more brutally in the past. You do know why the Islamists took power in countries following the Arab Spring? Because all other forms of protest labelled as “communist” were repressed in blood by corrupted dictatorships supported and trained by our democracies, leaving the field opened for protest to religious fanatics.
The greatest numbers of voters are abstentionist. This should have been the alarm bell.
So, when stability means no job again, some choose chaos. Death is stable, life is chaos. If chaos means they might have a chance to finally have something, they choose chaos.
I read this: they don’t want to be protected when they lose their job, they want a job. And this simple thing has been ignored by all governments for now 30 years. So the ones, even if there is only a remote chance they keep their promises to do so, are better than the ones who even don’t think to build a future for them. And thanks to the “system” (a term which I will not explain here but it describes a complex interactions of “natural” allies, economic, political and media), all other options have been made out of option, the only one left is the “hand grenade”.

Corbyn isn't "labelled as Communist". Corbyn follows the Communist creed, as described by Orwell back in the day when Uncle Joe was still alive. He even follows the modus operandi, memorably allegorised by Orwell in Animal Farm.

[Pannonian]

I've been saying that for a while, although I was expecting it to happen with someone like Sanders and not Trump...
This is where humanity disappoints me again, I guess.
To me, Sanders is more the "Change together" candidate and Trump the "Change by throwing them under the bus" candidate, although those are very generic terms considering both are willing to steal jobs from poor Chinese workers...
And then it remains to be seen whether Trump wasn't just a trojan horse given that he belongs to the billionaire class himself and may leave a lot of governing to republican establishment politicians.

You've got Corbyn in the UK: the pretend to be anti-establishment candidate who fattens himself at the trough, the Napoleon who chases out Blair's Snowball, standing indulgently while Momentum's sheeplike members baa out the latest version of Four Legs Good Two Legs Bad.

[Husar]

You've got Corbyn in the UK: the pretend to be anti-establishment candidate who fattens himself at the trough, the Napoleon who chases out Blair's Snowball, standing indulgently while Momentum's sheeplike members baa out the latest version of Four Legs Good Two Legs Bad.

I'm sorry, but the UK left my world by choice a couple of months ago. :sweatdrop:

As a personal advice, don't become like Gilrandir or me and try to bring your pet issue into every topic.
*insert rambling about the rich vs poor divide/greed being the root of all evil*

[Montmorency]

Brenus, from the 1930s to 1960s American socialists developed the term "politically correct" for American supporters of the CCCP that always upheld whatever dogma that party promulgated, regardless of local considerations and developments for example. That is to say, the term was reserved for those perceived to have limited political interests in mind rather than some broader socialist principles.

TBH Sanders seems like the sort who would have held out Corbyn as politically correct.

Agree that Pannonian needs to change the record a bit.

[Gilrandir]

As a personal advice, don't become like Gilrandir or me and try to bring your pet issue into every topic.


That's overstretching it. I have a pet thread for my pet topic, so it mostly stays there.

And what's your pet issue?

[Pannonian]

I'm sorry, but the UK left my world by choice a couple of months ago. :sweatdrop:

As a personal advice, don't become like Gilrandir or me and try to bring your pet issue into every topic.
*insert rambling about the rich vs poor divide/greed being the root of all evil*

The UK is proof that post-truth politics isn't restricted solely to the right. It certainly exists on the right, as seen in the enthusiasm for the manifestly incompetent UKIP. But the story that giving the left free rein will solve all problems is shown to be false by the experiment in the UK, where the supposed establishment left has been routed and the far left are in complete control. The far left has been given free rein in the UK, and all they're doing with it is entrenching their position within the political system, making sure that they and their friends will be in a position to benefit for years to come. Corbyn's Labour are no different from Farage's UKIP in this respect, and they share the same sentiments on the EU (better out than in).

Personally, I blame the move towards the fringes on the fanatical belief in the extremes of liberal democracy, the belief in rights without responsibilities, and the belief that one's voice, however ignorant and unresearched, counts just as much as those who've dedicated their lives to learning about these issues. Back in the day, socialists believed in bettering oneself through self-education. If one does not have access to the education system of the rich, one can still learn about the world through experience, or by reading books. Someone who has gone through that is more worthy than someone who hasn't gone through that. Nowadays, thanks to reality TV and such, people think their individual vote matters just as much as those who've slogged through these issues. They're not inclined to do the research or trust those that do, as they figure that their vote is worth just as much at the ballot box. And social media, that enabler of post-truth politics, makes it that much easier for them to complete that closed circle.

Which brings us back to Corbyn's Labour, AFAICS the most archetypal example of post-truth politics in the western world. At least the Trump and Brexit campaigns had to contend with a whole electorate. With Corbyn's Labour, there is already a self-selected sub-electorate. Which means the ideal conditions for the post-truth political campaign, which depends on subsets and self-selection.

[Husar]

That's overstretching it. I have a pet thread for my pet topic, so it mostly stays there.

And what's your pet issue?

Nowadays, but there was a time when you tried to link every second thread to Putin.
My pet issue is right below the sentence you quoted.


The UK is proof that post-truth politics isn't restricted solely to the right. It certainly exists on the right, as seen in the enthusiasm for the manifestly incompetent UKIP. But the story that giving the left free rein will solve all problems is shown to be false by the experiment in the UK, where the supposed establishment left has been routed and the far left are in complete control. The far left has been given free rein in the UK, and all they're doing with it is entrenching their position within the political system, making sure that they and their friends will be in a position to benefit for years to come. Corbyn's Labour are no different from Farage's UKIP in this respect, and they share the same sentiments on the EU (better out than in).

Personally, I blame the move towards the fringes on the fanatical belief in the extremes of liberal democracy, the belief in rights without responsibilities, and the belief that one's voice, however ignorant and unresearched, counts just as much as those who've dedicated their lives to learning about these issues. Back in the day, socialists believed in bettering oneself through self-education. If one does not have access to the education system of the rich, one can still learn about the world through experience, or by reading books. Someone who has gone through that is more worthy than someone who hasn't gone through that. Nowadays, thanks to reality TV and such, people think their individual vote matters just as much as those who've slogged through these issues. They're not inclined to do the research or trust those that do, as they figure that their vote is worth just as much at the ballot box. And social media, that enabler of post-truth politics, makes it that much easier for them to complete that closed circle.

Well, as much as I pass as a leftist for all the rightists, I have no doubt that the left can be just as bad. I also already said that people are idiots.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those that simplify the world into easy categories like left and right, good and bad, and those who can see the nuance in everything (theory of relativity). :clown:


Which brings us back to Corbyn's Labour, AFAICS the most archetypal example of post-truth politics in the western world. At least the Trump and Brexit campaigns had to contend with a whole electorate. With Corbyn's Labour, there is already a self-selected sub-electorate. Which means the ideal conditions for the post-truth political campaign, which depends on subsets and self-selection.

Somehow reminds me of the democratic primary as well. In that case you can also point out the obvious flaw in their thought process. The whole "Hillary is more electable than Sanders" even though some polls (read closely, Gilrandir!) said Sanders would fare much better against Trump than Clinton. Then again noone believed Trump could actually become the Republican nominee at that time either. :sweatdrop:
Of course I like Sanders because he always repeats what I've been saying for a long time, that a "system" where the "billionaire class" drains money from the 99% and tries to sell them "trickle down" economics in politics cannot have a very long future...
Even with Sanders a lot of people laugh about it or say it's just communist drivel that is not to be taken seriously, but now we have president-elect Trump...

And to try and connect the two things, I've long thought that one mistake a part of the left does is to focus too much on the socio-issues instead of the socio-economic ones. What good is equal pay for women if their jobs are rationalized away or it's just minimum wage either way? The issue is not just that blacks are kept in poverty, it's that escaping poverty is made almost impossible for everyone. I'd wager to say that quite a few of the societal issues would almost resolve themselves if the rich-poor divide were mitigated FOR EVERYONE.
While capitalism does have its virtues, it needs to be heavily restrained, mixed with heavy socialist cushions or replaced with the next economic system sooner or later.

The worst offenders in my book are still the Republicans and Libertarians who want to unshackle it even more. That will just screw over poor people even more. The whole support for small business is the worst idea when a lot of the successful business categories have such high entry barriers that you need to be a billionaire to be able to hire the required people (manufacturing chipsets in your garage? dream on...) or will nerver be able to compete with big businesses because they got more experts and economies of scale + resources on their side.

[Pannonian]

Nowadays, but there was a time when you tried to link every second thread to Putin.
My pet issue is right below the sentence you quoted.



Well, as much as I pass as a leftist for all the rightists, I have no doubt that the left can be just as bad. I also already said that people are idiots.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those that simplify the world into easy categories like left and right, good and bad, and those who can see the nuance in everything (theory of relativity). :clown:



Somehow reminds me of the democratic primary as well. In that case you can also point out the obvious flaw in their thought process. The whole "Hillary is more electable than Sanders" even though some polls (read closely, Gilrandir!) said Sanders would fare much better against Trump than Clinton. Then again noone believed Trump could actually become the Republican nominee at that time either. :sweatdrop:
Of course I like Sanders because he always repeats what I've been saying for a long time, that a "system" where the "billionaire class" drains money from the 99% and tries to sell them "trickle down" economics in politics cannot have a very long future...
Even with Sanders a lot of people laugh about it or say it's just communist drivel that is not to be taken seriously, but now we have president-elect Trump...

And to try and connect the two things, I've long thought that one mistake a part of the left does is to focus too much on the socio-issues instead of the socio-economic ones. What good is equal pay for women if their jobs are rationalized away or it's just minimum wage either way? The issue is not just that blacks are kept in poverty, it's that escaping poverty is made almost impossible for everyone. I'd wager to say that quite a few of the societal issues would almost resolve themselves if the rich-poor divide were mitigated FOR EVERYONE.
While capitalism does have its virtues, it needs to be heavily restrained, mixed with heavy socialist cushions or replaced with the next economic system sooner or later.

The worst offenders in my book are still the Republicans and Libertarians who want to unshackle it even more. That will just screw over poor people even more. The whole support for small business is the worst idea when a lot of the successful business categories have such high entry barriers that you need to be a billionaire to be able to hire the required people (manufacturing chipsets in your garage? dream on...) or will nerver be able to compete with big businesses because they got more experts and economies of scale + resources on their side.

The plus that the Trump and Brexit campaigns have going for them is that they've gone through the test of winning an argument that involves the whole electorate. Put aside left and right, and that's the fundamental difference between them and Corbyn's Labour. They had to engage an electorate that includes a substantial proportion of people who disagree with them, and however divisive their arguments, they've won. Compare with Corbyn, who competes only within a self-selecting sub-electorate, and who is interested only in strengthening his position within said self-selecting sub-electorate. For the forseeable future, and barring conditions that we've not seen in the UK for a century, Labour will be the main opposition to the Tories. Ergo the leader of the Labour party will be the Leader of the Opposition. That's all Corbyn aspires to. Thus he doesn't need to engage with Tory, UKIP, and other voters. All he has to do is engage with Labour voters, who by their nature will already be speaking his language. And by flooding the Labour members with his supporters, he will control the party without having to talk with anyone who may disagree with him.

See the parallel with social media and post-truth politics?

IIRC it was Witney, David Cameron's old constituency, where the new Corbynite Labour party doubled its number of members by a thousand, but lost thousands of votes to the Lib Dems in the actual election. That's the result of giving the far left free rein in the UK. Corbyn has total control of the party which now speaks the language of the far left fantasists, but there is no realistic alternative to the Tory government, whose only effective opposition is to their right flank. But that doesn't bother Corbyn or his supporters, one of whom stated that, were Labour to be reduced to 30-40 MPs, it would still be deemed a success, as long as they're all ideologically sound. Ie. it doesn't matter if the right has control of the country, as long as the far left has control of the Labour party.

[Gilrandir]

My pet issue is right below the sentence you quoted.

We may join efforts and philosophize on how under Putin the gap between the rich vs poor has grown and it was caused by the greed of Russian powers-that-be. ~;)


The whole "Hillary is more electable than Sanders" even though some polls (read closely, Gilrandir!) said Sanders would fare much better against Trump than Clinton.


A bad call. In view of what I said elsewhere I will no longer read sentences started with "polls say".

[Husar]

We may join efforts and philosophize on how under Putin the gap between the rich vs poor has grown and it was caused by the greed of Russian powers-that-be. ~;)

That's hardly surprising given that he is very authoritarian, I find it more surprising when people get to choose their leaders.
Especially if they choose far right to make up for monetary injustices. The far right is usually the first to collude with the billionaire class. :sweatdrop:


A bad call. In view of what I said elsewhere I will no longer read sentences started with "polls say".

On that note, a recent poll study by YouGov concludes that Germans are the least likely to fall for populist propaganda:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/trump-brexit-front-national-afd-branches-same-tree/

If you want criticism, we can begin with the fact they called it "Holland" and not "The Netherlands", it does however support what I recently thought, that we Germans are somehow more mellow nowadays in general. We do have our PEGIDA and AfD, but they don't seem to gain traction quite so easily as Trump and populists elsewhere. The downside to this is that we get more mainstream politics. Then again Merkel does quite a few radical things anyway. :sweatdrop:
We still have a growing divide between rich and poor though.

[edyzmedieval]

Populist and even extremist propaganda is gaining traction, regardless of the country. It very much depends now how many will be turning their ear to it.

[rory_20_uk]

Populist and even extremist propaganda is gaining traction, regardless of the country. It very much depends now how many will be turning their ear to it.

Gaining traction? I think it is very clear that propaganda has been around for a long, long time in most countries.

~:smoking:

[edyzmedieval]

Regaining traction, to put it that way. ~;)

It's always been there indeed, but it's regaining traction after decades in the low light.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

We don't have your history. A rightwing party gaining traction for a while is just a political shift. One of your rightwing groups gets a few seats in an assembly somewhere and I swear you are all hearing "Es braust unser panzer in sturmwind dahin" in the backs of your minds.

[Pannonian]

We don't have your history. A rightwing party gaining traction for a while is just a political shift. One of your rightwing groups gets a few seats in an assembly somewhere and I swear you are all hearing "Es braust unser panzer in sturmwind dahin" in the backs of your minds.

The problem, at least in the UK, is that the Left, which should be providing an at least credible alternative to the governing party, has taken exactly the opposite lesson to the one that American posters here have been hammering after the Trump victory. The same thing has been repeated again and again: the Democrats were wrapped up in their own righteousness, and didn't bother to listen to people who might disagree with them. That was also the case with New Labour towards the end of Brown's tenure, but the lesson that the Corbynites have chosen to take is to retreat even further into their bubble, even further away from people who may disagree with them. Hence my point that the Corbynite wish for nothing more than control of the Labour party, without reference to anything outside the Labour party, is a bad thing. That path is to glory in one's own righteousness, without having to engage with anyone who is ideologically impure. That is why the Left is declining, not just in Europe, but also in the US.

[LittleGrizzly]

Given you highlighted one of my posts with red writing for references of Blair and Blairite accusing it of being some kind of parroting of momentum propaganda I can't help but feel a long look in the mirror is required.

Not only is your constant hammering of the Corbyn/Corbynite catchphrases (far more excessively than I did Blair/Blairite) straight out of the New Labour playbook but you can't seem to help yourself but link every issue, no matter what the topic. back to It despite it being mentioned to you about doing it excessively.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Given you highlighted one of my posts with red writing for references of Blair and Blairite accusing it of being some kind of parroting of momentum propaganda I can't help but feel a long look in the mirror is required.

Not only is your constant hammering of the Corbyn/Corbynite catchphrases (far more excessively than I did Blair/Blairite) straight out of the New Labour playbook but you can't seem to help yourself but link every issue, no matter what the topic. back to It despite it being mentioned to you about doing it excessively.

Corbyn is bad news for anyone who want an effective Opposition, which should be everyone.

He's also not what he appears to be - i.e. honest - he's just corrupt in a different direction.

Traintgate caught him lying through his teeth just to make a cheap point and his insistence on continuing to champion the absurd abandonment of Nuclear Weapons despite his party voting to renew them shows he doesn't believe in collective responsibility.

We are a Parliamentary Democracy, Collective Responsibility is the cornerstone of our political life.

Despite that Corbyn, the supposedly great democrat, refuses to either accept the decision of his political party or resign the leadership in protest. No, instead he will re-shape the party until is reflects his own beliefs. This is pretty much the reverse of how democracy is supposed to work, instead of the Labour party changing direction and electing Corbyn it elected Corbyn as a rejection of the party elite and now He will purge His Party.

McDonnell is a Trot - so he has no business being anywhere near political power.

[Brenus]

"Traintgate caught him lying through his teeth just to make a cheap point" Except of course he was not lying, but carry on. Don't let facts stop you.

"Despite that Corbyn, the supposedly great democrat, refuses to either accept the decision of his political party or resign the leadership in protest. No, instead he will re-shape the party until is reflects his own beliefs. This is pretty much the reverse of how democracy is supposed to work, instead of the Labour party changing direction and electing Corbyn it elected Corbyn as a rejection of the party elite and now He will purge His Party." YES. Voters are wrong. Only elites know better...
Ahh, the rejection of democracy to protect democracy is a great idea...

The progression of the extreme-right is due to this. Carry on not to listen in your high towers, in you bubbles, and the mobs will come, the ones left with only the crumbs of your cakes.
By the way, who reshaped (or tried) the Labour Party as they wanted it to vote? Who barred members to vote? Corbyn or the Labour Elites?
Didn't you understand the Arab Spring? The goodies are not always winning...
One reality you shouldn't escape from: Hillary Clinton paid the price of Obama's failure.
Corbyn is the price of Labour's failure to understand their natural electorate.
YOU are telling what Corbyn wants, not him. You might think he will do, but you have, as for traingate, no facts to back-up your opinion.
Do you really think that Nuclear Weapons should be the cornerstone of a campaign is part of the country where 4 generations are on benefit due to the lack of work? Really? When you hear this, the ones with no job and no future hear more jobs, more education, life perhaps...
In fact, you replicate media in presenting your opinion as facts. And then you start to believe in what you think as facts.

[LittleGrizzly]

So the, twice, overwhelmingly ahead of his rivals, elected leader of the Labour party should step down in the interests of democracy...

Not really a compelling argument to be honest with you.

[Furunculus]

We don't have your history. A rightwing party gaining traction for a while is just a political shift. One of your rightwing groups gets a few seats in an assembly somewhere and I swear you are all hearing "Es braust unser panzer in sturmwind dahin" in the backs of your minds.

that is the way i have always thought about britain.

[Kralizec]

"Traintgate caught him lying through his teeth just to make a cheap point" Except of course he was not lying, but carry on. Don't let facts stop you.

By Corbyn's own admission, there were unoccupied seats. His explanation is that only two adjacent seats were good enough because he wanted to sit next to his wife.

So yes, he was lying. He was saying the train was completely packed and therefore had to sit on the ground. I don't know if you use public transportation a lot, but people who travel alone generally like to occupy their own two-seat bench unless some stranger needs the seat. Corbyn's situation occurs whenever a typical bus or train car is about half full.

Maybe the point he was trying to make is a genuine, real concern. Doesn't change the fact that the video is staged - Corbyn himself wasn't faced with the problem he was trying to adress.


"Despite that Corbyn, the supposedly great democrat, refuses to either accept the decision of his political party or resign the leadership in protest. No, instead he will re-shape the party until is reflects his own beliefs. This is pretty much the reverse of how democracy is supposed to work, instead of the Labour party changing direction and electing Corbyn it elected Corbyn as a rejection of the party elite and now He will purge His Party." YES. Voters are wrong. Only elites know better...
Ahh, the rejection of democracy to protect democracy is a great idea....

Disingeneous. The term "voters" is usually understood to mean everybody who bothers to vote in a general election, unless explicitly stated otherwise. The numberof people who are actual members of a political party, let alone those who vote in internal elections, is tiny. At least when compared to the people who strongly sympathize with the party but aren't actual members. That said, the only true test is a general election, so we'll just have to wait and see who's right in the end.

Disclaimer: Corbyn and the British labour party don't affect me personally, but some parts of this story feel very familiar to me as a Dutchman and besides I'm personally interested in the politics of neighbouring countries, so that's why I weigh in.

[Pannonian]

Disingeneous. The term "voters" is usually understood to mean everybody who bothers to vote in a general election, unless explicitly stated otherwise. The numberof people who are actual members of a political party, let alone those who vote in internal elections, is tiny. At least when compared to the people who strongly sympathize with the party but aren't actual members. That said, the only true test is a general election, so we'll just have to wait and see who's right in the end.

What Brenus fails to acknowledge is that Corbyn has spent his entire adult life preaching to people who already believe in what he says. Nowadays he has a larger congregation, but he's still preaching to people who already believe in what he says. Labour members are, by their nature, believers in socialism in some form or other. All he has to do within the context of controlling the Labour party is to convince people using the language of socialism. Unfortunately for the people of Britain, this isn't the only electorate that exists. There exists a fair chunk of eligible voters who don't believe in socialism, for whom the language of socialism means nothing to them. These people are the British voters, and they far outnumber Labour members. As I pointed out earlier, in a recent by election the number of Labour members in the constituency doubled by several hundred, but the number of Labour voters dropped by several thousand, dropping them to third place in the constituency (where they'd previously been second). But this doesn't matter to Corbyn supporters, as by their own standards the rise in Labour members was a success, regardless of the far bigger drop in votes.

And this was the problem that our US posters stated of the Democrats, even posters who didn't vote Trump. The American Left saw the world in terms that had little resemblance to that of the wider electorate, and they refused to engage with the wider electorate. For the wider European Left, the plight of the American Left cannot be ignored, while the words and deeds of the British Left should be an object lesson in how not to do things.

[Brenus]

"By Corbyn's own admission, there were unoccupied seats."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-traingate-virgin-trains-row-cctv-sitting-on-floor-passengers-overcrowding-a7217471.html
"Accounts of the “traingate” incident differed but others passengers on the train later came forward to confirm that it was indeed very busy." Underlined by me. Unoccupied seats doesn't mean they are free (as the picture of him in the 1st class carriage).

"What Brenus fails to acknowledge is that Corbyn has spent his entire adult life preaching to people who already believe in what he says. Nowadays he has a larger congregation, but he's still preaching to people who already believe in what he says." Carry on. Live in your High Castle, in your bubble. BTW, using religious vocabulary to describe a political movement shows you intent and discredits your points even the valid ones. Why don't you simply recognised that Corbyn did win the internal election within the rules imposed by his opponents? Your answer, like in USA and in UK, is to blame the voters. They are brutes, savages, ill-educated, trotskyists, whatever qualifications you choose. Why not acknowledging the reality which is Corbyn won because Brown and other Miliband flailed in delivering jobs and winning elections.
The ones saying Corbyn can't win elections are the ones who lost the precedent ones. They are the potential winners who previously lost all.
"Unfortunately for the people of Britain, this isn't the only electorate that exists." So why to organise elections? Why not follow the polls which all of them failed on all recent elections/referendum? Why bother? What about convincing people, voters, that your program is the good one?

[LittleGrizzly]

You do wonder how all these potential rivals to Corbyn were going to sweep to victory when they can't even seem to attract that many votes amongst their own party, what chance the wider electorate?

It is one thing the disciples of New Labour refuse to actually acknowledge is none of their candidates would actually be having any more success right now, especially with all the backstabbing they have organised within the party but lets carry on with this fantasy that Corbyn is the only thing holding Labour back if it suits the New Labour manta.

[Husar]

You do wonder how all these potential rivals to Corbyn were going to sweep to victory when they can't even seem to attract that many votes amongst their own party, what chance the wider electorate?

Weeeell, we can't know for sure, but plenty of polls gave Sanders a better chance vs Trump than Clinton and yet Clinton got the votes within her party. Bernie bros claiming to vote for Trump and the now popular idea that Trump was voted in due to his rhetoric on making the system fairer for the small guy, which is similar to Sanders', might suggest that Sanders could have won against Trump but could not win his party's nomination. :dizzy2:

So yeah, it's quite possible that a party chooses the worst candidate for the general election.

[Brenus]

Perhaps it's me, but I think democracies as we know facing facing a challenge.
Due to the mix-up well orchestrated between democracy and free-market, which is free just by the name, the populations that lost their future don't believe any more in the "elites" who just, whatever the label, delivered the same soup.
In all countries submerged by unemployment and raising poverty, it looks like the most urgent thing to do for politicians is the cancell the taxes for the rich, in hoping, hope always denied, they will invest. The myth of the "jobs' creators" is dead.
So the temptation for a Right Wing party is now open.
Due to some efforts of banalisation of Extreme Right ideologies in the EU Assembly and the acceptance of their ideology, EU encouraged by anti-communism these ideologies to re-born unchecked.
The Canonisation of a Nazi war Criminal sympathiser Stepinac by the vatican is only one of the aspect.
The blind eye policy on the development of Catholic Church initiated extreme-right policy in Poland, the political obsession to dismantle social protection and national identities in order to promote fear of tomorrow and communitarianism by the EU is back-firing.

The poors and distituted are back in the political game. They still abstain, and when they don't, they vote for the political/human cocktail Molotov.
They don't care of morality. They don't care of good manners. As in Medieval Total War, their war cry would be "fear us".

I can see that in France.
It is growing, and in ignoring massive protests against some laws in forcing the vote in the Parliament, as they did for the European Treaty in the throat of the electorate who just voted against, the successive French Governments (as EU) showed democracy existed only when it suits the "perfumed", the "elites".

[Kagemusha]

One thing i would like to know is who are these "elites"?

[Pannonian]

One thing i would like to know is who are these "elites"?

Whoever they don't like. Eg. anyone who isn't a wholehearted Corbynite will forever be labelled a Blairite, even though Jeremy Corbyn was a Labour MP alongside Tony Blair (part of the same intake in fact), while Owen Smith entered parliament after Blair had retired. Orwell saw it in his own time, and wrote about it in Animal Farm and 1984. The creation of a universal enemy, ill-defined bar the label, and labelling opponents as supporters of said universal enemy. He wrote about more concrete characteristics of that kind in his essays too, but they're not as well known as his novels.

[Gilrandir]

I can see that in France.
It is growing, and in ignoring massive protests against some laws in forcing the vote in the Parliament, as they did for the European Treaty in the throat of the electorate who just voted against, the successive French Governments (as EU) showed democracy existed only when it suits the "perfumed", the "elites".

How come your opinion of France has taken a U-turn? Only a year ago it was "My dear, if the Islamist attack France it is because France represents all what they hate. France embraces life when they embrace death, France values liberty, they value slavery, France values equality, they value discrimination, France values Fraternity, they value racism.
France embraces science, secularism, they prefer superstition and obscurantism." (thread Paris attacks: At least 120 dead, post # 48).

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"Traintgate caught him lying through his teeth just to make a cheap point" Except of course he was not lying, but carry on. Don't let facts stop you.

CCTV footage clearly shows Corbyn walking past unoccupied and unreserved seats before sitting down on the floor. The train was busy, it was not "rammed" as he said because there were still free seats. Also, there's nothing to stop you sitting in a reserved seat until the person who reserved it boards - that's perfectly acceptable.

I've been on genuinely "rammed" trains in this country when passengers can't even board because there's literally no space. To hear Corbyn you would think trains should always be 20% empty, which is silly.

It's simple - he said there were no free seats - but he walked past free seats. He's either lying or he's not practiced in spotting free seats on a busy train (doesn't often travel by rail).


"Despite that Corbyn, the supposedly great democrat, refuses to either accept the decision of his political party or resign the leadership in protest. No, instead he will re-shape the party until is reflects his own beliefs. This is pretty much the reverse of how democracy is supposed to work, instead of the Labour party changing direction and electing Corbyn it elected Corbyn as a rejection of the party elite and now He will purge His Party." YES. Voters are wrong. Only elites know better...
Ahh, the rejection of democracy to protect democracy is a great idea...

You are miss-reading what I wrote. Corbyn was elected by the party, yes, and at the same conference where his re-election was confirmed the same party voted to support the Nuclear Deterrent. Not the "elite", not the "Parliamentary Party", but the whole party. Afterwards Corbyn was quick to get on the airwaves and say he would continue to argue for Nuclear disarmament.

That is a rejection of collective responsibility and a lot of non-elite Labour members are annoyed because Corbyn is rejecting the democratically decided party policy and trying to pull the party in a different direction. If he doesn't like then outcome of the vote he should resign in protest.


The progression of the extreme-right is due to this. Carry on not to listen in your high towers, in you bubbles, and the mobs will come, the ones left with only the crumbs of your cakes.
By the way, who reshaped (or tried) the Labour Party as they wanted it to vote? Who barred members to vote? Corbyn or the Labour Elites?
Didn't you understand the Arab Spring? The goodies are not always winning...
One reality you shouldn't escape from: Hillary Clinton paid the price of Obama's failure.
Corbyn is the price of Labour's failure to understand their natural electorate.
YOU are telling what Corbyn wants, not him. You might think he will do, but you have, as for traingate, no facts to back-up your opinion.
Do you really think that Nuclear Weapons should be the cornerstone of a campaign is part of the country where 4 generations are on benefit due to the lack of work? Really? When you hear this, the ones with no job and no future hear more jobs, more education, life perhaps...
In fact, you replicate media in presenting your opinion as facts. And then you start to believe in what you think as facts.

The working class have abandoned the Left en masse, they all voted "Right" for Brexit. It isn't just the political Right who have lost touch, the Left are as bad if not worse.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing about here, I'd rather say ranting about.

If Labour want to support unilateral disarmament they can, as a Party, but right now it's just Corbyn and his Momentum movement, the Party supports rearmament.

Anyway, there's plenty of evidence for Traingate and to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, when we have CCTV with timestamps.

[Idaho]

What! A supposed labour supporter claiming that the economic elites are a phantom put about to allow tyranny! That this was the warning from George Orwell!

I cannot believe how you can be that wrong headed. That post is staggering in the strength and depth of its wrongness.

Who are these elites? Presumably you think they don't exist because none of them live on your street, or work in your office?

[Idaho]

CCTV footage clearly shows Corbyn walking past unoccupied and unreserved seats before sitting down on the floor. The train was busy, it was not "rammed" as he said because there were still free seats. Also, there's nothing to stop you sitting in a reserved seat until the person who reserved it boards - that's perfectly acceptable.

I've been on genuinely "rammed" trains in this country when passengers can't even board because there's literally no space. To hear Corbyn you would think trains should always be 20% empty, which is silly.

It's simple - he said there were no free seats - but he walked past free seats. He's either lying or he's not practiced in spotting free seats on a busy train (doesn't often travel by rail).



You are miss-reading what I wrote. Corbyn was elected by the party, yes, and at the same conference where his re-election was confirmed the same party voted to support the Nuclear Deterrent. Not the "elite", not the "Parliamentary Party", but the whole party. Afterwards Corbyn was quick to get on the airwaves and say he would continue to argue for Nuclear disarmament.

That is a rejection of collective responsibility and a lot of non-elite Labour members are annoyed because Corbyn is rejecting the democratically decided party policy and trying to pull the party in a different direction. If he doesn't like then outcome of the vote he should resign in protest.



The working class have abandoned the Left en masse, they all voted "Right" for Brexit. It isn't just the political Right who have lost touch, the Left are as bad if not worse.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing about here, I'd rather say ranting about.

If Labour want to support unilateral disarmament they can, as a Party, but right now it's just Corbyn and his Momentum movement, the Party supports rearmament.

Anyway, there's plenty of evidence for Traingate and to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, when we have CCTV with timestamps.

Yeah but Cameron ****ed a pig.

[LittleGrizzly]

E.g. anyone who isn't a wholehearted Corbynite will be forever branded a Blairite, even though Jeremy Corbyn was a Labour MP alongside Tony Blair (part of the same intake in fact), while Owen Smith entered parliament after Blair had retired. Orwell saw it in his own time, and wrote about it in animal farm and 1984. The creation of a universal enemy , ill-defined bar the label and labelling opponents as supporters of said universal enemy
_______________________________________________

I have to question just how self aware you are after reading this post....

That describes your posts I have been reading here on the .org perfectly, the enemy being Corbyn, the "far left" and Momentum rather than Blair and Blairites though.

To the point where people have asked you to stop bringing your pet topic into different topics but you must keep fighting the good fight against the "enemy" right?

Also I'm sure it is obvious to someone as intelligent as yourself, but you must keep up the propaganda against the enemy I guess, you don't actually have to have served with Tony Blair to follow his political ideology...

Many people managed to vote for and support Tony Blair without once serving in the house of commons with him....

[Pannonian]

E.g. anyone who isn't a wholehearted Corbynite will be forever branded a Blairite, even though Jeremy Corbyn was a Labour MP alongside Tony Blair (part of the same intake in fact), while Owen Smith entered parliament after Blair had retired. Orwell saw it in his own time, and wrote about it in animal farm and 1984. The creation of a universal enemy , ill-defined bar the label and labelling opponents as supporters of said universal enemy
_______________________________________________

I have to question just how self aware you are after reading this post....

That describes your posts I have been reading here on the .org perfectly, the enemy being Corbyn, the "far left" and Momentum rather than Blair and Blairites though.

To the point where people have asked you to stop bringing your pet topic into different topics but you must keep fighting the good fight against the "enemy" right?

Also I'm sure it is obvious to someone as intelligent as yourself, but you must keep up the propaganda against the enemy I guess, you don't actually have to have served with Tony Blair to follow his political ideology...

Many people managed to vote for and support Tony Blair without once serving in the house of commons with him....

The best way of fighting the Right is to elect the Left into power. The problem with the Left, at least in the UK and US, is that those in control have no intention of listening to the people. That point was made, again and again, by disgusted US posters here in the US election thread. The point they made, again and again, is that the Left are so up their own fundament in their sense of righteousness that the idea of listening to people who might disagree with them is alien to them. See the point PFH makes above about Corbyn and Unilateralism, or the point he makes about Corbyn and Collective Responsibility. See the ex-Militants and their declaration that a Labour reduced to 30-40 MPs will be regarded as a success, if they are ideologically sound.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

What! A supposed labour supporter claiming that the economic elites are a phantom put about to allow tyranny! That this was the warning from George Orwell!

I cannot believe how you can be that wrong headed. That post is staggering in the strength and depth of its wrongness.

Who are these elites? Presumably you think they don't exist because none of them live on your street, or work in your office?

The warning from George Orwell was to beware the ill defined "elite", and it is something elements of the Left have been bandying about (the Right a little also). It's a dog whistle, just like "foreigner"


Yeah but Cameron ****ed a pig.

See, now you're just confusing fiction and reality.

[Brenus]

"Also, there's nothing to stop you sitting in a reserved seat until the person who reserved it boards - that's perfectly acceptable." I don't. What embarrassment when you have to move... You don't travel often in train, do you?

"I'm not really sure what you're arguing about here, I'd rather say ranting about." Of course. Opponents are ranting, always, they are a sect, converting, preaching...

"Anyway, there's plenty of evidence for Traingate and to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, when we have CCTV with timestamps." Read link.

"That is a rejection of collective responsibility and a lot of non-elite Labour members are annoyed because Corbyn is rejecting the democratically decided party policy and trying to pull the party in a different direction. If he doesn't like then outcome of the vote he should resign in protest." Ha, so he has to follow order, does he? If Party is annoyed by Corbyn, why did the members did vote massively for him? Questions, always questions... You should be careful, these sentence sounds like pure Stalinist literature (collective responsibility, democratically decided party policy), which is a bit strange, In another hand, Trotsky was killed by Stalin, so...:inquisitive:

"The working class have abandoned the Left en masse, they all voted "Right" for Brexit. It isn't just the political Right who have lost touch, the Left are as bad if not worse." Agree.

[Pannonian]

The warning from George Orwell was to beware the ill defined "elite", and it is something elements of the Left have been bandying about (the Right a little also). It's a dog whistle, just like "foreigner"


The warning was to keep an open eye on what is happening, as opposed to identifying everything as labelled. He was already highly sceptical about pro-USSR (and anti-Anglo-America) Communists, but things became even clearer during his time in Spain, when the Leftist group he was with was labelled as The Enemy, simply because they didn't fit in with the pro-Soviet group. He eventually favoured a bottom-up socialism resembling something like the Liberal Reformism of Lloyd George and Churchill, based on the more generous qualities of traditional English culture allied with a willingness to work for better (at all levels).

[Tristuskhan]

How come your opinion of France has taken a U-turn? Only a year ago it was "My dear, if the Islamist attack France it is because France represents all what they hate. France embraces life when they embrace death, France values liberty, they value slavery, France values equality, they value discrimination, France values Fraternity, they value racism.
France embraces science, secularism, they prefer superstition and obscurantism." (thread Paris attacks: At least 120 dead, post # 48).

I hope you won't feel outraged if I give you an alternate version of your sentence:
France embraces life when they embrace death, France values liberty and practices new kinds of slavery, France values equality, and practices quite a lot of discrimination towards quite a lot of categories, France values Fraternity, they value racism, or the other way because that's only words. A whole lot of words.

Reality is that temp workers still must work seven years more than others to gain retirement rights, that's the law. Temp work has become a standard within the working class. Structurally and legally droped in social standing. How does it feel to be an arab in France? Many many unarab french:inquisitive: begin to know. Well, know quite well. Roofers have a life expectancy of 62, masons 63 and will soon gain full retirement rights at 65. Nasty. Injustice.

Reality is that those who really rule the country are young civil servant or bank retirees (had short quiet careers, thats a blessed generation) and banksters. And Heirs who want to keep on making money whith the money they inherited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Gattaz is the true president.

A country that has seen only steps backwards for fifteen years is likely to make U turns. Our governments for fifteen years did it systematically. That makes people nervous. Liable to change their minds fast.

(first time I log for years, excuse my french, bande d'andouilles!)

[Gilrandir]

I hope you won't feel outraged if I give you an alternate version of your sentence:
France embraces life when they embrace death, France values liberty and practices new kinds of slavery, France values equality, and practices quite a lot of discrimination towards quite a lot of categories, France values Fraternity, they value racism, or the other way because that's only words. A whole lot of words.



This is not MY sentence. It was said by Brenus trying to present France as a beacon of everything that is good opposed to islamists as an epitome of everything that is bad. A year later he isn't so inspired speaking about the state France is in. I just wondered if he has changed his opinion so radically or the situation is France has deteriorated so badly within a year.

[Tristuskhan]

This is not MY sentence. It was said by Brenus trying to present France as a beacon of everything that is good opposed to islamists as an epitome of everything that is bad. A year later he isn't so inspired speaking about the state France is in. I just wondered if he has changed his opinion so radically or the situation is France has deteriorated so badly within a year.

Oh sorry. The situation has not changed so much in the last year, a big crisis within french democracy was brewing. Maintenant le vin est tiré, il faut le boire. Fifteen years long maturation for a bitter plonk.
France is likely a potential beacon of what is good:bow:, any nation can be so. In order to have a chance to achieve this (good) deed, France must govern herself. Last time it happened was probably between 1997 and 2002 (opened to debate there) and it is utterly boring for dedicated democrats like the french.:whip:

[edyzmedieval]

Fillon's win in the primary is a real surprise in French politics - along with the serious defeat inflicted on Sarkozy.

[Tristuskhan]

Fillon's win in the primary is a real surprise in French politics - along with the serious defeat inflicted on Sarkozy.

Farewell, nano-President, see ya on your next come-back!
Fillon is awfully conservative. He'll get the votes of this part of France that still feels right and have things to lose if any change comes. Are they the majority? No idea, pal!

[Strike For The South]

If the left paid as much respect to their own cultures as they did to others, we wouldn't be dealing with all these crypto nazis.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

How come your opinion of France has taken a U-turn? Only a year ago it was "My dear, if the Islamist attack France it is because France represents all what they hate. France embraces life when they embrace death, France values liberty, they value slavery, France values equality, they value discrimination, France values Fraternity, they value racism.
France embraces science, secularism, they prefer superstition and obscurantism." (thread Paris attacks: At least 120 dead, post # 48).

The positions in both posts are not incommensurate. Life is complex enough to require overlapping nuances, and cognitive ambiguity is the norm.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"Also, there's nothing to stop you sitting in a reserved seat until the person who reserved it boards - that's perfectly acceptable." I don't. What embarrassment when you have to move... You don't travel often in train, do you?

Where is the embarrassment?

If there was nowhere else to sit I would sit in a reserved seat and surrender it to its rightful owner when he boards. Englishmen have been doing it with grace for decades.


"I'm not really sure what you're arguing about here, I'd rather say ranting about." Of course. Opponents are ranting, always, they are a sect, converting, preaching...

You went on a rant unconnected to my point.


"Anyway, there's plenty of evidence for Traingate and to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, when we have CCTV with timestamps." Read link.

From the perspective of the seated passengers the train looked full... OK. From the perspective of the CCTV Corbyn clearly walked past several empty seats, and so did his entire crew. The fact that it made him more popular with his supporters for "sticking it to big business" is just absurd given the Business in question was Virgin Trains, owned by Richard Branson.

Branson's parents weren't exactly poor but he's made his own wealth, he has created thousands of jobs in the UK and he's known for treating his workers well.


"That is a rejection of collective responsibility and a lot of non-elite Labour members are annoyed because Corbyn is rejecting the democratically decided party policy and trying to pull the party in a different direction. If he doesn't like then outcome of the vote he should resign in protest." Ha, so he has to follow order, does he? If Party is annoyed by Corbyn, why did the members did vote massively for him? Questions, always questions... You should be careful, these sentence sounds like pure Stalinist literature (collective responsibility, democratically decided party policy), which is a bit strange, In another hand, Trotsky was killed by Stalin, so...:inquisitive:

It's really simple - Corbyn purports to lead a democratic political party, yet he does not support the democratically decided policies of that party. Instead, he insists on supporting the opposite policy.

If he genuinely feels the Labour party is wrong on this issue about which he is so passionate why does he continue to lead it? Having failed to convince the rest of the party of his view whilst leader and having had his proposal to drop Trident rejected the honourable thing would be to resign.

[Montmorency]

If he genuinely feels the Labour party is wrong on this issue about which he is so passionate why does he continue to lead it? Having failed to convince the rest of the party of his view whilst leader and having had his proposal to drop Trident rejected the honourable thing would be to resign.

Or bide his time? Parties would not survive if their leadership left over any disagreement.

[Pannonian]

Or bide his time? Parties would not survive if their leadership left over any disagreement.

I've not before seen a Labour leader campaign against an issue where party and country are overwhelmingly at odds with him. Even on Iraq, Blair managed to convince the majority of the Commons, which represent the British people. There is no body that supports Corbyn's stance on Unilateralism, and the Labour party clearly rejected it the last time it was discussed. But Corbyn goes the way he wants to go, free from any constraints that collective responsibility requires. He's still a backbencher in his mind and in his actions.

[Montmorency]

I'm merely saying that in principle there is no hold against a party leader such that they should not be able to publicly differ with their party on specific platform issues, or maintain a desire to see a change in party direction. Whether the party tolerates that leader is their own affair. If you remain a Labor member, it is your concern as well - but this angle is not a productive one for you. Focus less on principles of conduct and more on specific actions and issues.

[edyzmedieval]

Farewell, nano-President, see ya on your next come-back!
Fillon is awfully conservative. He'll get the votes of this part of France that still feels right and have things to lose if any change comes. Are they the majority? No idea, pal!

Fillon is a surprise.

A real one, and everyone was really betting on him to drop out. But turns out Monsieur Fillon won the primaries, knocking Sarkozy out and causing problems for Juppe. Technically, the Republicains will gather a large share of the votes because the French electorate is staunchly Republican, secular and always committed to the idea of a strong Republican France. Is Fillon the answer? We don't know yet.

What's certain is that this election will really reshape French politics because of so many surprises.

And it will be curious to see how Francois Hollande fares.

[Pannonian]

I'm merely saying that in principle there is no hold against a party leader such that they should not be able to publicly differ with their party on specific platform issues, or maintain a desire to see a change in party direction. Whether the party tolerates that leader is their own affair. If you remain a Labor member, it is your concern as well - but this angle is not a productive one for you. Focus less on principles of conduct and more on specific actions and issues.

If the leader himself rebels against the party line, what sanctions should there be against individual MPs who do so? Who is the Labour party, the party including the members and its bodies, or the leader? Which party line is the one that loyalty will be judged by, the one set by the leader or the one set by the party?

BTW, Corbyn's pet journalist, Paul Mason, said that all MPs who don't publicly swear loyalty to Corbyn should be deselected. In his mind, there is no confusion. Corbyn is the party.

[Brenus]

"Where is the embarrassment?" Don't know. It's me. Probably from education, or kind of shyness... I really don't know...

"Instead, he insists on supporting the opposite policy." Yet he is elected leader of the same party by the members of the Party. So who actually have the legitimacy within the Party?
I would accept your point if you presented it under the angle of MP are elected by and represent their constituencies, but, as they are members and elected under the label of Labour, their duties is to represent their electorates in Party meetings, not their own preference (see, I just twist your point)... If they so passionated bla bla bla, why don't their resign for Labour? They will be elected by Liberal then vote Tories, as usual.

"If he genuinely feels the Labour party is wrong on this issue about which he is so passionate why does he continue to lead it?" Because he was elected by the party members could be a point to start...
You see, democracy is to accept defeat. To accept that sometimes things don't go your way. The Labour's rebels wanted to have their way, whatever the cost could be, and knowing Corbyn's strength within the Party's members, tried a Coup, failed, instead to try to convince the Party's members to vote for them. It backfired horribly, they had to resort to manipulation which will dishonor the Party and the values they said they represent and this for a long time. If they would succeed in their attempted Coup, the voters who joined will have left, and the ones who came would have go back to abstention.
A successful Coup would have secured Tories' victories for decades, as Labour failed the last decades to make any differences for the people it is supposed to represent, and it would have kill the idea of Labour representing the destitutes, the underdogs and the jobless.

[Brenus]

"What's certain is that this election will really reshape French politics because of so many surprises." Agree. None of the "predictions" by the "specialists" and media have shown real.
I hope (do my best) on an even bigger surprise...

[Tristuskhan]

"What's certain is that this election will really reshape French politics because of so many surprises." Agree. None of the "predictions" by the "specialists" and media have shown real.
I hope (do my best) on an even bigger surprise...

Like what? Rebirth of an authoritarian left? François Bayrou on a rampage? Hollande making it out of fear once again?

[Brenus]

Rebirth of the Republican Left. Well, to have a leftist party at least, as from PS to FN, they have all the same rightist policy...

[Montmorency]

Which party line is the one that loyalty will be judged by, the one set by the leader or the one set by the party?

Well, perhaps now you are getting at the real question. Maybe the Corbyn-electing PMs even feel that, while they are given to consider practicalities of governance, their party leader should act unconstrained in an ideological apotheosis? Head of party as political id (or superego if you prefer)? It's not an entirely novel or bizarre notion.

Here's a representative comment from a news post that expands the Mason view cited by Pannonian:


Whether Eagle is considered a Blairite or not doesnt matter. It is her betrayal of her leader that marks her out. Labour members voted for Corbyn in massive numbers a year ago. He deserves the support of his MPs. All organisations need a structure that everyone recognises. This applies to a business, army, or political party. If those within an organisation do not respect the structure then the viability of organisation is at threat.
She has challenged Corbyns leadership, fair enough she is entitled to do that but the consequences of this putsch have to be severe. I believe the future of the Labour Party is at stake here. So my advice to Corbyn is to explain before the vote that those that support the challengers will have their titles removed if he wins. Deselection. You cannot have an army where the soldiers support the leader but the lieutenants do not. If Corbyn is a real leader he needs to stamp down hard on those within Labour that question his right to lead.


But then it would certainly validate the fears of anyone who exactly disagrees with this direction for the party. By the same token, however, it turns any criticism of Corbyn-as-leader inert unless constructed as wider criticism of what is now perhaps the majority of the PLP.

[Pannonian]

Well, perhaps now you are getting at the real question. Maybe the Corbyn-electing PMs even feel that, while they are given to consider practicalities of governance, their party leader should act unconstrained in an ideological apotheosis? Head of party as political id (or superego if you prefer)? It's not an entirely novel or bizarre notion.

Here's a representative comment from a news post that expands the Mason view cited by Pannonian:

But then it would certainly validate the fears of anyone who exactly disagrees with this direction for the party. By the same token, however, it turns any criticism of Corbyn-as-leader inert unless constructed as wider criticism of what is now perhaps the majority of the PLP.

Could you put that into plain English please? I thought I could cope with some of the more arcane language used in political discussions, but the above beats my comprehension skills.

And BTW, in response to the above quote ("It is her betrayal of her leader that marks her out. Labour members voted for Corbyn in massive numbers a year ago."), in 2002, less than a year after the British electorate returned Blair's Labour to power with a majority of 160+ (bigger than Attlee's majority in 1945), Corbyn challenged Blair for the leadership. What's changed? Do Corbyn's supporters regard Labour members as more significant than the British people?

And in case anyone wants to call this off topic, I'll return this to the point I've made again and again. In the UK at least, and according to our American posters, in the US as well, the Left exists without regard of the general populace. They are only interested in winning their own argument, with the expectation that they are therefore right, without the need to take people who disagree into account. The above quote and its disregard of Corbyn's history is illustrative of that. In its view, the Labour party stands alone, without taking the British people into account.

[Montmorency]

Could you put that into plain English please? I thought I could cope with some of the more arcane language used in political discussions, but the above beats my comprehension skills.

?

It's not quite what I'm trying to describe, but something like wanting a leader not bound to political practicalities or niceties that they themselves as plain MPs will operate within, meaning that (if a correct evaluation) making a distinction between party line and Corbyn line does not make sense so long as Corbyn backers form the majority within the Labor Party as represented in Parliament (i.e. PLP).


And in case anyone wants to call this off topic, I'll return this to the point I've made again and again. In the UK at least, and according to our American posters, in the US as well, the Left exists without regard of the general populace. They are only interested in winning their own argument, with the expectation that they are therefore right, without the need to take people who disagree into account. The above quote and its disregard of Corbyn's history is illustrative of that. In its view, the Labour party stands alone, without taking the British people into account.


That's not enough to say. The quoted comment, as well as others, assert that Corbyn and related movement are in fact currently representative of the Labor electorate, and that Blairites or Red Labor or whatever are no longer.

[Pannonian]

?

It's not quite what I'm trying to describe, but something like wanting a leader not bound to political practicalities or niceties that they themselves as plain MPs will operate within, meaning that (if a correct evaluation) making a distinction between party line and Corbyn line does not make sense so long as Corbyn backers form the majority within the Labor Party as represented in Parliament (i.e. PLP).

That's not enough to say. The quoted comment, as well as others, assert that Corbyn and related movement are in fact currently representative of the Labor electorate, and that Blairites or Red Labor or whatever are no longer.

If Corbyn is representative of the Labour movement, and Angela Eagle is a traitor for challenging him so soon after the Labour members had elected him with such a majority, what do you make of Corbyn's leadership challenge against Blair, a year after the British voters had elected him with one of the biggest majorities in living memory (second only to Blair's 1997 election victory). Do Labour members matter more than British voters?

[Montmorency]

If Corbyn is representative of the Labour movement, and Angela Eagle is a traitor for challenging him so soon after the Labour members had elected him with such a majority, what do you make of Corbyn's leadership challenge against Blair, a year after the British voters had elected him with one of the biggest majorities in living memory (second only to Blair's 1997 election victory). Do Labour members matter more than British voters?

Nothing in particular. What happened with it afterwards? If you find can find and deconstruct any appraisals from the Corbyn side, I'd like to hear it.

I can't find address of specific parallel between mandate of Blair leadership and mandate of Corbyn leadership, but a general view among supporters seems to be his conduct shows "strength of character (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-nick-brown-rebellions-blair-brown-strength-of-character_uk_58049770e4b0ee3352127fdd)". But more interesting from the article is a list of "Corbyn rebellions":


1983-1987: 19 times – which made him the 8th most rebellious Labour MP



1987-1992: 36 times – 7th most rebellious Labour MP



1992-1997: 72 times – 3rd most rebellious Labour MP



1997-2001: 64 times – the most rebellious Labour MP



2001-2005: 148 times – the most rebellious Labour MP



2005-2010: 216 times – the most rebellious Labour MP



2010-2015: 62 times – 3rd most rebellious Labour MP

Clearly he stepped up his game during Blair years, but it still leaves me with the question: what was the story with those other, ostensibly even more rebellious, MPs?

[Pannonian]

Nothing in particular. What happened with it afterwards? If you find can find and deconstruct any appraisals from the Corbyn side, I'd like to hear it.

I can't find address of specific parallel between mandate of Blair leadership and mandate of Corbyn leadership, but a general view among supporters seems to be his conduct shows "strength of character (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-nick-brown-rebellions-blair-brown-strength-of-character_uk_58049770e4b0ee3352127fdd)". But more interesting from the article is a list of "Corbyn rebellions":

Clearly he stepped up his game during Blair years, but it still leaves me with the question: what was the story with those other, ostensibly even more rebellious, MPs?

They're not Labour leader, with supporters calling for deselection of those who disagree with them. Blair, Brown, even Smith and Kinnock, were more tolerant of Corbyn than Corbyn is of people who disagree with him. They accepted rebellions from the likes of Corbyn as a matter of course. Corbyn regards them as treason.

And it still doesn't answer the question, how is Corbyn's majority among Labour members argument enough for deselection of MPs who disagree with him, but Blair's majority among British voters not argument enough for Corbyn to accept his leadership in the way that Corbyn expects his own leadership to be accepted?

The above question relates to the Left in general, in the UK in particular of course, but also in the US as our American posters have repeatedly stated. And avoiding it makes one wonder about the European Left as well.

[LittleGrizzly]

I'd argue your point about the UK and US left is correct but not for the reasons you believe, both in the UK and the US the political parties had a favoured candidate which they backed, I can't say so much for the USA but in the UK they did it against the popular opinion of the party members, they really weren't interested in listening, they knew they were right and people were expected to follow.

The difference is the establishment backed candidate won in the US.

[Tristuskhan]

Rebirth of the Republican Left. Well, to have a leftist party at least, as from PS to FN, they have all the same rightist policy...

What I said, then... There is ample room for a "moderate" but genuinely left wing current. But the left has to leave it's lenient attitude (towards daily insecurity; hegemony of financial powers; tax evasion; some abuses of social care,few but can't be tolerated; degradation of health services and utter scuttling of school system; funding and spiritual management of mosques by nice, allied, and arguably moderate powers; waste of public funds feeding the new and very dominant caste of public/private managers, those 60000 who never lose; rule of vulgarity and arrogance in the media, managerial and political spheres; mismanagement of environmental issues and so on, what a list....).

Something like 25% of the french population has a deeply rooted communist background (really). Some who don't want the republic to be a joke. Most, since most are part of the classes who felt the pain for the last fifteen years, will be wasted on Jean-Marine's side if the left doesn't get back it's sense of authority. On the weak and on the strong. Hard times, eh? Everyone to do his share, then.

I want a rebirth of the Republican Left, indeed, because if it does not happen the local yokels where I live, deep in the mud, will give a majority to the Heiress on first round*.




*and get ready for the night of the long knives to get rid of the queer fraction inside the FN!:clown: TheFrench far-right has always shown genius for division and FN is not a stable matter. In the past it was most about ultracatholic vs neopagan vs AlgérieFrançaise vs ExCollabos, but now with the technocratic gay-friendy current and the neo-underworld current emerging in the south, that IS promising. A bunch of rulers, indeed. Well, that's not funny but one has to laugh.

[Pannonian]

I'd argue your point about the UK and US left is correct but not for the reasons you believe, both in the UK and the US the political parties had a favoured candidate which they backed, I can't say so much for the USA but in the UK they did it against the popular opinion of the party members, they really weren't interested in listening, they knew they were right and people were expected to follow.

The difference is the establishment backed candidate won in the US.

Establishment and party members again, once more missing the point made by the American posters in the wake of the US election. What matters isn't so much the party and what the party members deem to be right. Winning that argument matters little if you ignore the general electorate. Compare Corbyn's supporters crowing about the mandate he's got from the Labour members that renders any rebellion against him to be treason, and Corbyn's rebellion (in the same form) against Blair, despite Blair having a massive mandate from the British voters. Corbyn's supporters have cited his mandate from the Labour members to strengthen his position in the party, changing party structures and procedures to ensure that he can't be challenged again. What is his position wrt the British voters, pray? Or does that not matter to Corbyn's supporters, as long as Corbyn gets to turn the Labour party into his plaything?

Once more, the danger for the European Left is disappearing up their own backside as the British and American Left have, resulting in the Right having a clear run at election into government. Which is the only election that matters.

[Brenus]

"There is ample room for a "moderate" but genuinely left wing current" In theory. But thanks to the Sarkolland period, words have lost their meaning.
To link with the debate about Corbyn and Labour in UK, when voters can't genuinely make a difference in social and economical policies and are under attack from now 20 years, 2 solutions: Abstention or rage vote.
The righist movement doesn't have problem with the ones like Fillon, Cameron or Trump. But when the alleged left had accepted the rules and vocabulary imposed by the right, they lose. Until someone come and say he/she can break the game. Trump in US.

"Which is the only election that matters." And to do the same policy than the ones you took the power from? Then forgetting why and who you represent? Paint on dust and it is new, is it?

[LittleGrizzly]

TBH New labour are far more guilty of what you accuse them of Pannonian. Firstly Owen Smith is no more electable than Corbyn, if anything he is less electable than the guy.

So why would parts of the labour party destroy the election chances of the labour party by plotting a coup at the worst possible time to replace a candidate they see as unelectable with one just as unelectable?

Because they don't care about winning elections, the argument they wanted to win was in their own party.

They knew better than the people and wanted to tell them what to do, the left was refusing to listen, even trying to bar Corbyn, the standing leader, from standing in the leadership election!

[Pannonian]

TBH New labour are far more guilty of what you accuse them of Pannonian. Firstly Owen Smith is no more electable than Corbyn, if anything he is less electable than the guy.

So why would parts of the labour party destroy the election chances of the labour party by plotting a coup at the worst possible time to replace a candidate they see as unelectable with one just as unelectable?

Because they don't care about winning elections, the argument they wanted to win was in their own party.

They knew better than the people and wanted to tell them what to do, the left was refusing to listen, even trying to bar Corbyn, the standing leader, from standing in the leadership election!

Take what you like from it then. Historically the key issues for determining the election chances of Labour are leadership and trust on the economy. Add immigration to the list with the Euro ref result. Check the poll figures for Labour, discarding outliers, and with the caveat that Labour have historically been at their peak at this point in the electoral cycle, and will only decline from here to the election. Then check the poll figures on leadership (May and Corbyn), the economy (Hammond and McDonnell), and immigration (Rudd and Abbott). Do post the numbers here, and what you make of them.

[Brenus]

"Then check the poll figures on leadership" Yes, let's the polls decide what is best, no need elections then...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"Where is the embarrassment?" Don't know. It's me. Probably from education, or kind of shyness... I really don't know...

Well, you should not be embarrassed, nor should you be made to feel embarrassed provided you graciously surrender the reserved seat.


"Instead, he insists on supporting the opposite policy." Yet he is elected leader of the same party by the members of the Party. So who actually have the legitimacy within the Party?
I would accept your point if you presented it under the angle of MP are elected by and represent their constituencies, but, as they are members and elected under the label of Labour, their duties is to represent their electorates in Party meetings, not their own preference (see, I just twist your point)... If they so passionated bla bla bla, why don't their resign for Labour? They will be elected by Liberal then vote Tories, as usual.

"If he genuinely feels the Labour party is wrong on this issue about which he is so passionate why does he continue to lead it?" Because he was elected by the party members could be a point to start...
You see, democracy is to accept defeat. To accept that sometimes things don't go your way. The Labour's rebels wanted to have their way, whatever the cost could be, and knowing Corbyn's strength within the Party's members, tried a Coup, failed, instead to try to convince the Party's members to vote for them. It backfired horribly, they had to resort to manipulation which will dishonor the Party and the values they said they represent and this for a long time. If they would succeed in their attempted Coup, the voters who joined will have left, and the ones who came would have go back to abstention.
A successful Coup would have secured Tories' victories for decades, as Labour failed the last decades to make any differences for the people it is supposed to represent, and it would have kill the idea of Labour representing the destitutes, the underdogs and the jobless.

In response to this I would point out that Corbyn was re-elected and THEN the party decided to support rearmament and THEN he said he would continue to argue for unilateral disarmament. My point is that after his election Corbyn failed his first major test as leader, first by failing to convince his part of his position, and then by failing to accept the decision gracefully.

This has nothing to do with the need for a genuine Left-Wing alternative in Britain and everything to do with Corbyn's base unsuitability as leader. I think Corbyn won the vote because he's the real Left-Wing candidate, not because he was the cabdidate the majority of the party wanted. Despite that his supporters are building a cult around his leadership.

Remember Concerts for Corbyn?

In other news, this was interesting:

https://youtu.be/XkoRODfEMyY

[Husar]

My biggest issue with Corbyn is his failure to understand the need for and benefits of the EU for the socialist cause. So he's basically a national socialist. :sweatdrop: :creep:

[Pannonian]

My biggest issue with Corbyn is his failure to understand the need for and benefits of the EU for the socialist cause. So he's basically a national socialist. :sweatdrop: :creep:

His chief of staff, Seumas Milne, accused the British Communist Party of being insufficiently pro-Russia. Milne has also said that Stalin has done more good than harm, while Diane Abbott, Corbyn's shadow home secretary, said the same about Mao Zedong. The whole lot of them are pro-Castro, pro-Chavez, pro-Iran, and pro-anyone who is ant-Anglo-America of course.

Orwell described their kind back in the 1940s. His description of selective pacifists is especially precisely accurate of Corbyn himself, eg. the sanctimoniousness that is non-existent where (Soviet) Russia is involved. Even in the aftermath of WW2, when the European Far Right had been decisively discredited, Orwell warned the Left against disappearing up its own backside, as the Far Left, especially the anti-Anglo-America type, was no better.

[Greyblades]

In other news, this was interesting:

https://youtu.be/XkoRODfEMyY

Looks like someone earned a big break.

[Il Duce II]

The reason why the left doesnt resonate with white working class anymore is because they have replaced them with foreigners.

[Husar]

The reason why the left doesnt resonate with white working class anymore is because they have replaced them with foreigners.

And the foreigners will be replaced with robots, so there's really no point in listening to these crazy demands for jobs anyway. What people should demand is a basic wage for everyone.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966


One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

And the foreigners will be replaced with robots, so there's really no point in listening to these crazy demands for jobs anyway. What people should demand is a basic wage for everyone.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966

Isn't it Judge Dread where everyone is basically paid to sit at home and democracy has been abolished? Eventually they had a referendum on whether to restore Democracy, but everyone had forgotten how it worked, so they didn't vote.

Rather like Brexit where the younger generation felt their "vote didn't count" and therefore didn't vote, so the older generation carried the vote for Leave.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Are there any viable right wing parties in Europe that are NOT dressed up fascists?

As a working definition I'm labeling "right" as nationalistic, preferencing local control over national for domestic concerns, regulated free market.

[Greyblades]

I dont know, are there any viable left wing parties in Europe that arent dressed up communists?

Same answer methinks.

[lars573]

Isn't it Judge Dread where everyone is basically paid to sit at home and democracy has been abolished? Eventually they had a referendum on whether to restore Democracy, but everyone had forgotten how it worked, so they didn't vote.
More like technological progress made the number of working people needed to make most elements of society function (not just robots but general automation) is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions who live in each Mega-city. Then the corrupt and incompetent civil government was over thrown by the Justice department and they ran things for a generation.* Then when a vote was held to restore democracy or keep the Judges running the show the returns came back leave the judges in charge.


And yes you can see western society going more in that direction. However Judge Dredd was created in the late 70's, when automation and de-industrialization really got going. And it wasn't much of a satirical extrapolation to see a future where many people didn't work because what would they do?




*By Generation I mean ~25 years or so. Long enough for a large groups of voters to know not but Judge rule.

[rory_20_uk]

In the UK, more money is given as "benefits" to people in work that those without - in essence, the work that they do isn't productive enough to provide that they expect to remain mainly within the law abiding society. I believe that this is a relatively new phenomenon.

I heard a radio programme some months ago that the person in charge of a Premier Inn Hotel is on £18k - all they do is follow the "play book" handed from HQ and call in should events diverge. They may be running a team of 20 or more people but are paid a pittance and have little real responsibility. Could next this be replaced with all staff having their schedule on their phone with IBM / Google's AI software working out rotas and sorting out most HR issues without human interaction?

Then we'd really have just the menials in the hotel (hell, even the food is often sent in pre-cooked) and a few in HQ and perhaps outsourced support for the AI which works with many different companies.

I doubt many like this approach, and rather than having a plan just get upset at the current politicians who are in whilst this is being undertaken. Town centres in the UK and probably abroad are criticized for all being the same with the same big shops. The solution is easy - don't shop at them. But no one is prepared to pay the premium to get the same things from independents. So the cycle continues.

To sort out the really bad structural parts of this would require some really nasty laws - such as the EU and USA telling big companies that unless all the money is repatriated to where things were bought (and all taxes paid) the money would be in effect cancelled. But start a fight with those who pay for your campaign? Fat chance!

~:smoking:

[Husar]

They may be running a team of 20 or more people but are paid a pittance and have little real responsibility.
[...]
But no one is prepared to pay the premium to get the same things from independents. So the cycle continues.

One could see a connection there. :sweatdrop:

As for a society where noone works anymore, I'd say noone worls for a living anymore and everyone has time for hobbies, which can also involve creating things, so there could even be two economies. One that creates the necessities and commodities etc. for everone, and one where people just exchange the things they create or do to pass their time or because they are passionate about them. People may even discover passions they never knew they had because then they would have the time and resources to try things they can't try when they work 40 hours a week for a pittance.

[Montmorency]

everyone has time for hobbies, which can also involve creating things

Why would hobbyism form an economic system? Where are the resources and production chains for subsistence coming from? Assuming absence of total command economy by world governments, decline of labor means decline of market capitalism and many of its attendant goods and services, which means states and societies will organize around something else entirely. Strange thing to imagine a world just like today's but with more free time.

Extreme stratification by technological gradients seems likelier on the personal and communal level. The best case might be neo-feudalism without the serfs.

[Kagemusha]

Are there any viable right wing parties in Europe that are NOT dressed up fascists?

As a working definition I'm labeling "right" as nationalistic, preferencing local control over national for domestic concerns, regulated free market.

We have right wing liberal party called Kokoomus aka "national coalition", which is liberal party akin to your democrats in their policies and Keskusta aka the "center party" which is a moderate conservative party. Our right wing nutters can be found from the Perussuomalaiset aka "Basic Finns" party. These three are now forming the Finnish government at the moment. Our left wing parties include SDP aka Social Democratic party who are conservative and moderate lefties with large support from Workers Unions and Vasemmistoliitto, who are mixture of ex commies and idealist lefties.

[LittleGrizzly]

I didn't realise May was an option in the Labour leadership race.

If she was, your constant criticism of Corbyn's unelectibility would ring more true, but she wasn't a candidate.

The candidate who stood against Corbyn was just as unelectible, if not more so.

I assume you would have backed May had she stood in the Labour leadership election?

Edit: I pressed quick reply but it didn't qoute the post, I also can't copy paste, this was in response to Pannonians last reply to me.

[Husar]

Husar you seem to forget that Robots don't and won't vote in elections.

That's completely irrelevant because humans do and will vote in elections.
Unless you want to allow only employed people to vote, which would be an especially strange move both with and without automation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

That's completely irrelevant because humans do and will vote in elections.
Unless you want to allow only employed people to vote, which would be an especially strange move both with and without automation.

How about the vote being determined as thus: In the immediately preceding tax year, the voter must paid in taxes 1$ or 1 Euro more than they received from the government in some form of benefit or payment?

[Husar]

Removed

Now I'm not entirely sure what you are saying. How can a country be "call"? Isn't "to call" a verb? :dizzy2:

And why does it matter that robots don't vote? Is the argument that white people re going to vote for a robot "genocide" so they can work in coal mines and on dangerous conveyor belts for 80 hours a week again instead of having fun with their families while the robots work?
In that case I may have underestimated how much the working man hates himself. :sweatdrop:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Removed

Impressive. Post removed by moderator...while we have an active thread discussing posting etiquette in the backroom. 10 out of 10 for style mate....

[Husar]

How about the vote being determined as thus: In the immediately preceding tax year, the voter must paid in taxes 1$ or 1 Euro more than they received from the government in some form of benefit or payment?

Do we take all indirect payments and benefits into consideration as well? I mean things such as use of infrastucture, political stability for better business climate, protection of private property, establishment of security that benefits the business climate, provision of a court system for enforcement of contracts, provisionod childcare benefits to strengthen the production of new consumers/provide a viable workforce, education provision to make said workforce ready for employment, loan-provision to prospective employees for higher education in order to secure the availability of a properly educated workforce, and so on and on....

That could become a relatively long list of potential government benefits that everyone would have to hand in beforehand, the government would need to hire a whole lot of people (who then couldn't vote anymore...) in order to calculate all that. In the interest of small government, I would rather keep it simple and let every citizen above a certain age vote. ~;)

[Montmorency]

How about the vote being determined as thus: In the immediately preceding tax year, the voter must paid in taxes 1$ or 1 Euro more than they received from the government in some form of benefit or payment?

Leaving aside the problem of wider justification for such a system, for someone who doesn't care for a graduated income tax you should quickly notice that the chicanery surrounding the relatively trivial placement into tax brackets or other fiscal thresholds would translate with a vengeance.

Concretely, with the current tax/benefits system it would seem liable to disenfranchise a large majority of individuals below median income, and even some above.

[LittleGrizzly]

TBH I'd like to flip Seamus idea on its head somewhat, a vote for all those below a certain level of income.

You can have power through your own financial wealth or through your vote, if the country is serving your interests up to a certain point then you don't need your influence as much as those who are struggling. The country Is either already serving you or you can encourage it to do so with your vote.

Although I can see some good points and more equality as a result I can't say its better than everyone having a vote.

[Strike For The South]

When your plan for massive employment loss is "start an etsy business utilizing your hobby", you have no plan. The model of capitalism will outlast the working class it's leeching off of.

You can only play poor people off of each other so much. Americas response to the welfare state was massively subsidized food prices. I wonder what happens when that goes away and youre addicted to opiates, have no healthcare, and are hungry.

i would hope introspection and change. I fear the reality is South American style paramilitaries.

[Montmorency]

The model of capitalism will outlast the working class it's leeching off of.

I.e. The model of capitalism will outlast the civilization it has developed in, but the amenities of that civilization will not outlast it.

[Beskar]

Going to hit that stage where it will be post-human economy within hundred years. Then we have a choice of whether the economy serves the interests of the people (whole), or itself (owners). Internet it 20 years ago when the internet was becoming accessible to those at home, and now it is at the point where humanity cannot unplug itself from it. With quantum computing literally around the corner, coupled with the advances we already have such as self-driving cars, creative robots, stock exchange and boardrooms being managed by computers... human labour will only exist where it is cost effective, or niche applications, or in industries that require a human touch before they are replaced by androids.

Thing is, we have seen this technological takeover in real time. I remember when I worked in an Asda (Walmart for US), there were 15 people on the tills, going up to 22 for busy periods. When I walked in the same store the other day, there were 3 people on the tills, and the rest was automated self-service machines. If a store really pushed for automation, I wouldn't be surprised to see 90% of the jobs when I worked there gone.. rather like how an Amazon Storehouse is mostly ran by robots and drones. Even things like seeing your GP, you book your appointment online, walk in, sign in on touch screen, sit down, wait for your name to be called out, see your GP. Removed the receptionist from the process.

As I have posted before: Humans Need Not Apply (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

There are political concepts should as paying everyone a wage 'for free', but these will only start becoming politically saleable when the current wave of advancements hit the streets, leading to greater job losses.

[Furunculus]

How about the vote being determined as thus: In the immediately preceding tax year, the voter must paid in taxes 1$ or 1 Euro more than they received from the government in some form of benefit or payment?

in britain that would take out about 15m of the 45 million total electorate.

[a completely inoffensive name]

People are too doom and gloom. Barring a complete bubble surrounding the political elites, the solution to increased automation will be more artificial demand.
There are already markets where large percentage of labor is only sustained by large government subsidies.
Ideally, the goal would be to begin shrinking population to start equalizing supply of labor with the real demand provided by the market. This has already been happening, as growing Western populations are entirely the result of immigration at this point.

[Husar]

Ideally, the goal would be to begin shrinking population to start equalizing supply of labor with the real demand provided by the market.

Not sure what you mean with that, a shrinking population also lowers the demand for products, which reduces the demand for labor even further and makes the entire economy shrink. How is that ideal to fight the job loss through automation?

[Montmorency]

There are already markets where large percentage of labor is only sustained by large government subsidies.

These markets are externally sustained by the markets that aren't such.

We're talking about ecosystem collapse here.

[Pannonian]

Labour would save the NHS – but the NHS won’t save Labour
‘Rinse and repeat’ has let Ukip exploit an existential crisis for which all elements of the party must take responsibility (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/labour-would-save-the-nhs-but-the-nhs-wont-save-labour)


What Labour first needs to understand is which of its voters are defecting to Ukip. Ian Warren, the pollster who conducts focus groups of Labour-to-Ukip defectors, identifies two groups. One is blue-collar working households; relatively politically engaged; over 40; white; non-graduates; and from the Midlands, northern England or Wales. They are socially conservative on defence, social security and immigration.

The other group includes deprived, disaffected voters from similar communities. They’re typically under 40; either private renters or council tenants; often in insecure work; they are less likely to vote unless motivated to do so. Neither would ever vote Tory. Like Corbynistas, they generally prefer pre-Blair Labour to what happened next; but their social conservatism distinguishes them.

Identity trumps leftwing economic populism. “The only reason they’re staying with us is some sense of tribal loyalty which is being eroded with every passing day,” Warren says. Both groups feel the left treats them with contempt. “They see Labour as being cosmopolitan and distant from them, with nothing to say to their concerns, and looking down at them,” pollster James Morris says.

Virtually exactly what anti-Clintonites said in the US about the Democrats. That is what the European Left should beware. Predictably, the comments at the bottom go straight to counter accusations against "Blairites".

NB. Owen Jones was one of the founders of Corbynism, going back to the days when they attended the same demonstrations (since the 1980s IIRC). He's been writing for a few months that Labour's leadership, namely Corbyn's team, doesn't engage with the British voters (and been accused of being a Blairite traitor as a result).

[LittleGrizzly]

I'd suggest the cosmopolitan Labour they see as distant from them is the result of New Labour, in fact your little bit even suggests they preferred Labour pre-Blair, so they in fact don't like New Labour but prefer what Labour used to represent, which Corbyn is much closer to...

Of course that still doesn't suggest they are bringing the voters back, but then your angle with this, of Corbyn is bad and New Labour is good makes even less sense, It was New Labour that originally turned these voters away, from the very thing you quoted it seems less New Labour style leadership is more likely to attract them back.

I notice you failed to answer my question regarding May.

Would you have backed her in the Labour leadership election?

After all you keep battering me with how unelectable Corbyn is, whilst completely ignoring the fact his rival in the leadership election was also unelectable.

So would you have gone for May as Labour leader? (in a hypothetical where she holds the same views but happens to be a Labour MP)

Or are you one of these militants who would rather lose but secure millions of votes for your viewpoint?

[Pannonian]

I'd suggest the cosmopolitan Labour they see as distant from them is the result of New Labour, in fact your little bit even suggests they preferred Labour pre-Blair, so they in fact don't like New Labour but prefer what Labour used to represent, which Corbyn is much closer to...

Of course that still doesn't suggest they are bringing the voters back, but then your angle with this, of Corbyn is bad and New Labour is good makes even less sense, It was New Labour that originally turned these voters away, from the very thing you quoted it seems less New Labour style leadership is more likely to attract them back.

I notice you failed to answer my question regarding May.

Would you have backed her in the Labour leadership election?

After all you keep battering me with how unelectable Corbyn is, whilst completely ignoring the fact his rival in the leadership election was also unelectable.

So would you have gone for May as Labour leader? (in a hypothetical where she holds the same views but happens to be a Labour MP)

Or are you one of these militants who would rather lose but secure millions of votes for your viewpoint?

I favoured Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership election. If nothing else, she had a track record of competence in government (having been one of the architects of Sure Start, which is as close as a project comes to my ideological line). She's concretely done far more for the less well off than Corbyn has in twice the time spent in politics.

[LittleGrizzly]

So you, like Corbyn supporters, are one of those militants who would rather lose an election but back the candidate you like....

Interesting stuff, next time you criticise Corbyn supporters for their ideological purity over realistic chances of winning an election it might be worth keeping in mind you are just as guilty of it as they are.

[Montmorency]

Interesting stuff, next time you criticise Corbyn supporters for their ideological purity over realistic chances of winning an election it might be worth keeping in mind you are just as guilty of it as they are.

This comment weakens insofar as a given candidate may be considered more "ideologically flexible" than Jeremy Corbyn.

[Beskar]

This comment weakens insofar as a given candidate may be considered more "ideologically flexible" than Jeremy Corbyn.

The other candidates were generally that terrible that Jeremy Corbyn actually stood out as representing something. I agree that David Miliband was definitely the better choice between him and Ed. Out of current MPs, who actually would be a half decent alternative? Andy Burnham? Would be nice to see a strong female candidate (not Diane Abbot) take the reins, probably one of the younger rising stars.

[Pannonian]

The other candidates were generally that terrible that Jeremy Corbyn actually stood out as representing something. I agree that David Miliband was definitely the better choice between him and Ed. Out of current MPs, who actually would be a half decent alternative? Andy Burnham? Would be nice to see a strong female candidate (not Diane Abbot) take the reins, probably one of the younger rising stars.

Cooper among the 2015 candidates combined centre leftism, competence and principles.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Not sure what you mean with that, a shrinking population also lowers the demand for products, which reduces the demand for labor even further and makes the entire economy shrink. How is that ideal to fight the job loss through automation?

No, as the automation trend continues the ability of poor to lower middle groups to maintain standards of living will decline. There are already people taking it at face value that millennials as a generation will not attain the same level of relative wealth of baby boomers.
As automation continues, more will be left out and you are going to see people slip back into sustenance level of existence unless government programs start becoming the handouts Republicans label them as. They will not be contributing to the economy as they currently do.

EDIT: Let me be clear. Trump won the Rust Belt because entire communities are collapsing out there. It has been a slow death, but you are seeing people buy into dangerous ideas because of how bad it is.

[Brenus]

Not completely in the subject but:
The 2 last Presidents of France are now out of the race (1 pushed, the other, err, pushed). Times are changing...
For better?
We shall see...

[Husar]

No, as the automation trend continues the ability of poor to lower middle groups to maintain standards of living will decline. There are already people taking it at face value that millennials as a generation will not attain the same level of relative wealth of baby boomers.
As automation continues, more will be left out and you are going to see people slip back into sustenance level of existence unless government programs start becoming the handouts Republicans label them as. They will not be contributing to the economy as they currently do.

EDIT: Let me be clear. Trump won the Rust Belt because entire communities are collapsing out there. It has been a slow death, but you are seeing people buy into dangerous ideas because of how bad it is.

That's a given, but not relevant to the "ideal solution" you proposed that I was commenting on.
You said it would be ideal to shrink the population to combat job loss through automation and my point was that it would not help, we'd automate fewer people out of work, but we'd still put them out of work.

Your point above is perfectly correct, but is merely the factual basis of our argument. The pay for jobs that require a degree already seems to go down as more people have a degree and jobs that don't require one get automated. It's a typical example of wealth being relative and the mechanics of trickle up. People are successively bled out until they reach the lowest possible level of subsistence by government help or even homelessness. Then the next higher ones get degraded while the billionaire class accumulates all the wealth. Modern turbo capitalism at work.

[Montmorency]

You said it would be ideal to shrink the population to combat job loss through automation and my point was that it would not help, we'd automate fewer people out of work, but we'd still put them out of work.

If elements of society and economy don't scale linearly with population, you might find around a certain threshold absolute minimums required for some services and maintenance, or at least minimal demand attrition. Also, you might see something similar with a population drop and a resistance in production loss. Finding a confluence for these could be a part of a "De-growth" ideology.

The biggest problem is that it requires extensive management and control somewhere along the line, and is an even bigger political challenge than global warming in terms of being constrained by what other countries in the world are doing about it. Even more so, since raw population is a fundamental source of comparative state power unless you take it to a vision like a self-sustaining dystopian arcology surrounded by savages with shotguns.

[Husar]

If elements of society and economy don't scale linearly with population, you might find around a certain threshold absolute minimums required for some services and maintenance, or at least minimal demand attrition. Also, you might see something similar with a population drop and a resistance in production loss. Finding a confluence for these could be a part of a "De-growth" ideology.

But then you're working against all economical principles and will likely spawn a lot of other side effects, such as very high prices that make some businessses not viable anymore at all. You may also limit the amount of specialization that is possible within a group until you end up with 5 people per village trying to grow enough food every year. :dizzy2:
If you keep an economy similar to what we have, the problem is not really solved IMO.


The biggest problem is that it requires extensive management and control somewhere along the line, and is an even bigger political challenge than global warming in terms of being constrained by what other countries in the world are doing about it. Even more so, since raw population is a fundamental source of comparative state power unless you take it to a vision like a self-sustaining dystopian arcology surrounded by savages with shotguns.

Yes, it goes against all incentives. I don't even disagree that shrinking the planet's population would be a good thing because it would allow us to live within the means of what the planet provides without destroying it in the process, it just doesn't solve the problem of unemployment through automation by itself, I think there are far better concepts and they could even be combined. The problem with population growth and country competitiveness can obviously be solved by ending competition between countries, i.e. EU integration and finally OWG.
A lot of people hate the idea though because they'd rather continue to advance their own lives at the expense of others, the chance for which is provided by competition. And given that their countries have a headstart in the competition, they obviously think it is great and should stay that way.

[Montmorency]

such as very high prices that make some businessses not viable anymore at all.


If you keep an economy similar to what we have, the problem is not really solved IMO.

Yes, as I said it would be a totally different system with heavy management from the center(s). Business viability for consumers won't be part of the picture.


Yes, it goes against all incentives.

One possible scenario: something like it would emerge by new incentives if the current economies break down and can't sustain their own characteristics any longer. A relatively-small centers of population and administration from which authority and force emanate, then areas around the cores for populations receiving a variety of security accommodations and organized more flexibly than the cores - where much of the production will go on, in some cases toward self-sustainability. Beyond these would be the periphery wherein large-scale organization does not exist, and where the cores perform their resource extraction. The global situation would remain in flux partly due to the fact that these assemblages won't form a OWG and will continue to compete against each other. In fact, it might even make imperialism or neo-feudalism more sustainable.

[Husar]

One possible scenario: something like it would emerge by new incentives if the current economies break down and can't sustain their own characteristics any longer. A relatively-small centers of population and administration from which authority and force emanate, then areas around the cores for populations receiving a variety of security accommodations and organized more flexibly than the cores - where much of the production will go on, in some cases toward self-sustainability. Beyond these would be the periphery wherein large-scale organization does not exist, and where the cores perform their resource extraction. The global situation would remain in flux partly due to the fact that these assemblages won't form a OWG and will continue to compete against each other. In fact, it might even make imperialism or neo-feudalism more sustainable.

And you had to come up with that idea just after I thought we could also privatise personal rights so that everyone can buy the package of personal rights that they can afford from the local private security firm of their choice.

[Montmorency]

privatise personal rights

?

Well, a "right" would be something that is given as a given(!). We have had rights based on cultural values and enforced among family and status-peers. We have had rights based on philosophy and nominally guaranteed or provided for by governments and between their citizens. You can't really privatize rights in those terms, they would just be services. The common thread is still of course that rights are evaluated in some way based on status and therefore on political considerations, so, for example, there isn't an impetus to set up a "freedom of speech" product as how you feel the need to regulate that speech is fluid and relational, and some fixed payments won't cover that, unless you devalue them by stipulating that the terms can be adjusted or voided in many circumstances - so again, why set it up as a product at all if the product doesn't make useful or viable specifications? What would be the difference between subscribing and not subscribing?

[Husar]

?

Well, a "right" would be something that is given as a given(!). We have had rights based on cultural values and enforced among family and status-peers. We have had rights based on philosophy and nominally guaranteed or provided for by governments and between their citizens. You can't really privatize rights in those terms, they would just be services. The common thread is still of course that rights are evaluated in some way based on status and therefore on political considerations, so, for example, there isn't an impetus to set up a "freedom of speech" product as how you feel the need to regulate that speech is fluid and relational, and some fixed payments won't cover that, unless you devalue them by stipulating that the terms can be adjusted or voided in many circumstances - so again, why set it up as a product at all if the product doesn't make useful or viable specifications? What would be the difference between subscribing and not subscribing?

Well, I hope that you would agree that the government protects our rights, for example when our "fellow" citizens try to take them away. If you lock someone up in a cellar, the police come, set them free and punish you for violating their rights. By privatising the rights I essentially mean privatising this function, so if you do not pay the security form for the right to walk free, anyone can lock you up and they won't act on it and so on. That doesn't mean you have to get locked up, it's just no more a punishable violation of your right if you did not pay to have this sort of protection of that right. The idea came to me because people say the private sector is always better than the government at running things and therefore we should privatise our entire infrastructure such as roads, the water system, and so on. The next step would be privatising the police and judiciary and then maybe even politics themselves, but I haven't thought about how the latter could be done exactly.
I guess voting rights could be traded on the stock market for example.

[Montmorency]

so if you do not pay the security form for the right to walk free, anyone can lock you up and they won't act on it and so on.

So the difference from "3rd-world" countries where this is typical (bribery to acquit duties) is that it would be formalized? That would be undesirable, because then those who cant get the services will be certain to mobilize informally on a small-scale - a very dangerous thing for a relatively-small society with still many vulnerable parts and means of coercion available. More likely that there would be strict "citizenship" rights, and penalties based on curtailment of those rights (beyond incarceration). Unsure how or if sippenhaft would apply.

[Husar]

So the difference from "3rd-world" countries where this is typical (bribery to acquit duties) is that it would be formalized? That would be undesirable, because then those who cant get the services will be certain to mobilize informally on a small-scale - a very dangerous thing for a relatively-small society with still many vulnerable parts and means of coercion available. More likely that there would be strict "citizenship" rights, and penalties based on curtailment of those rights (beyond incarceration). Unsure how or if sippenhaft would apply.

And that would be fundamentally different from privatizing the entire infrastructure how exactly? Note that I deliberately left out any comments on how desireable I find this, I merely thought about the option. ~;)

[Montmorency]

And that would be fundamentally different from privatizing the entire infrastructure how exactly?

In what sense would it be privatized? The states themselves and their instruments in this world would typically be some sort of evolution of hybrid government, like in Russia and China, state-governed organizations with private administration and buy-in, except rather than being a subset of the economy this would be the form of government itself.

[edyzmedieval]

In Austria, the far right has lost the Presidential bid.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/dec/04/italian-referendum-and-austrian-presidential-election-live

[edyzmedieval]

And... Matteo Renzi has lost the constitutional reform attempt. And his post as PM.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38204189