"They are politicians!" – the Politics thread

Topic

Sponsored by General Martok, (Lord Vetinari declined to be involved) here’s the thread for covering political goings on.

Replies

Yeah, that was my point. Also, I wasn’t referencing Corbyn, there was a rumor about a Labour Member saying they want “the extermination of every Jew on the planet”.

Sounds like a real credible rumour

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah, that was my point. Also, I wasn’t referencing Corbyn, there was a rumor about a Labour Member saying they want “the extermination of every Jew on the planet”.

Kalman, just curious: now that Donald Trump has changed his tune and refuses to officially acknowledge the Armenian Genocide by Turkey during WW1, is he still getting your vote in 2020?

I just read an interesting in-depth article about this, but this one tweet sums it up pretty well:

Labour Majority in Bishop Aukland:

1997: 21,064
2001: 13,926
2005: 10,047
2010: 5,218
2015: 3,508
2017: 502
2019: Lost

It's convenient & politically-lucrative for many to scapegoat Corbyn. It won't change the fact many of Labour's #GE2019 losses have been decades in the making.

— Hicham Yezza (@HichamYezza) December 18, 2019

This isnt a shock defeat for Labour. It’s the natural end point of a long trend.

In fairness to the polls they pretty much consistently this time had the Tories leading by around 10 points, the result we got was always within their margin of error and the final detailed one predicted a solid majority. Hope was kept alive from the Labour side because in 2016/2017 they were hopelessly wrong.

Tony Blair reckons they’d have done better under different leadership.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50829352

I wonder who he means…?

SteveUK wrote:

Tony Blair reckons they’d have done better under different leadership.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50829352

I wonder who he means…?

Maybe he means the only person who has been able to lead Labour to an election win since 1974.

I know people love to shit on Blair, and some of it is justified, but the fact remains that he did what none of the Labour leaders since has been able to do.

SteveUK wrote:

Tony Blair reckons they’d have done better under different leadership. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50829352 I wonder who he means…?

Sedgefield constituency, 1997

Labour

Tony Blair

33,526

71.2

2001

Labour

Tony Blair

26,110

64.9

2005

Labour

Tony Blair

24,421

58.9

2007

Labour

Tony Blair

Buggered off

I have no idea

Dave wrote:

but the fact remains that he did what none of the Labour leaders since has been able to do.

I get that Labour won and we all had high hopes when he started out but we gradually lost them as time went on. By the end I didn’t vote for him, I voted against the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

He diluted the Labour party’s principles and gradually became more authoritarian.

He stepped down because he’d lost the public’s trust, and left the Party to lose the next election despite being the kind of centrist party he’s advocating now.

He also knew how to win elections.

That kind of strategic thinking has been missing from Labour for a long time.

They can adopt the most laudable manifesto policies the world has ever seen, but if they can’t convert that into an election win then there’s not a lot of point to it.

Do you think he would’ve won in 2010? After Iraq and the financial crisis?

His time was up.

I’d take him back over Boris, but then I’d take a lot of people over Boris. That’s not the same as saying he woudlve won the election though.

More importantly, the new forum does tables

 

 

The Blair thing is interesting. It’s true he’s pretty much without peer as a Labour leader with electoral success but it’s also important to look at circumstances. I don’t think you can emulate what happened in 1997 in the same way and it was built on a lot of work previous to him.

I think part of his statements in the last few days that a strong remain message from Labour rather runs in the face of the results. Yes the dithering ‘on the fence’ position eroded support in the remain areas but in the main they still won those (and even took a couple of new ones in London). The vast bulk of seat losses were in leave voting areas.

Without doubt his leadership skills are vastly superior to Corbyn’s and he was a huge element in this election, his rankings in that area have been in the toilet throughout, but I’m also not fully convinced that a centrist in a nice suit with a slick PR machine would be the same factor it was 20 years ago. I think there’s a decent argument that that approach (and David’s numbers back it up to a degree) cold have contributed to the slow erosion of ‘the red wall’.

 

 

 

 

garjones wrote:

The Blair thing is interesting. It’s true he’s pretty much without peer as a Labour leader with electoral success but it’s also important to look at circumstances. I don’t think you can emulate what happened in 1997 in the same way and it was built on a lot of work previous to him.

I agree. I don’t think Labour need to go back to the Blair days in terms of policy or personality, and I don’t think a Blair-style politician would definitely win elections for Labour today.

My point is more that there doesn’t seem to be that same level of strategic thinking at all within Labour today. Thornberry is most convincing in that area to me, but while I think she’d be a good leader I get the sense that they’re again going to prioritise other ideological aspects when they make their choice.

Thornberry is super smart and great in debate but she’s also made some of the dumbest errors of judgement on the Labour team. The English flag bit the most obvious which haunts her to the degree I think it rules her out of the leader role but she dropped another clanger I saw on election night which appeared very superior.

I think Jess Phillips has the best chance of winning for Labour, she’s so anti-Boris and cuts through bullshit in a way that’s very valuable when politicians have lost so much trust. The problem is she wasn’t a Corbyn or Momentum loyalist which will make it very hard for her to get the votes internally.

 

 

I do like Phillips (and she’s local to me so I see her about a bit, and feel supportive to her as someone representing my area) but I still don’t know whether she has the substance for the leadership role yet. Maybe in a few years. I feel like she would end up being a good figurehead for what the party should represent but not necessarily the best person to rebuild it and lead it into the next election.

Spent my time yesterday with one eye on a streaming show, the other on the House of Representatives clown show. Let me add some context. When Tricky Dick Nixon was being really bad most folks were concerned about the war in Viet Nam, me, especially, as my birthday would hit and the draft would become a hurricane and blow me right to southeast Asia. So I was in ROTC, studying how the military worked so I could manipulate myself anywhere else than the jungle. Therefore, was very motivated and interested in the Watergate hearings, and watched many of them at the cousin’s house in Glendale (CA). My cuz Elanor was my mom’s age, a cinematographer. Her daughter Karen (a year older than me and the one who taught me to swim) later became Mayor of Fresno and a high-ip in California’s Department of Education. So the conversations were lively, loud, occasionally violent (that was my cousin Jay, who I had to punch out every other year for a long time). politically aware, and death to anyone who did not know how government worked. (That would be my mom, who, as I recall, did a lot of the cooking at the time.) So there was that. Then my back broke and went to hell, and in the years of recovery with long stretches in bed, I was treated to Clinton’s impeachment and the OJ Simpson trial. SO there’s the context, many incidents over a long lifetime of political observation and occasional participation.

This was the most embarrassing clown show on both sides I have ever had the misfortune to experience. And Gabbard, voting “Present”? To hell with her.  (She’s out by the weekend, mark my words.) Both sides. BOTH sides. Robotic. Spewing words with or without gesticulations and or very amatuer dramatics to say the same thing. “Trump is a devil and must go.” or “We adore out Trump and licketh his buttocks.” It’s sick shit, both sides! If anybody could get the least bit organized in all this chaos there would be some sort of Revolution. Most people cannot be arsed for more than about 24 hours.

And then there’s Boris. Sweet Jesus, why did you let Boris in? Are you really ticked at the Brits? That was kinda mean! Well, I guess that’s what they done unto you,m and karma’s a bitch.

Really tired of bullies and liars and narcissists. I’m getting too old for this shit!

 

DavidM wrote:

Again it’s difficult to know how much the antisemetism charges hurt Corbyn.

I think it’s bizarre to suggest than antisemitism was of great concern to many people anyway, let alone the idea that all the anti-Semites voted Labour and that no anti-Semites voted Conservative.

I’d be quite confident in betting that a majority of UK’s antisemites did not vote Labour.

I doubt the antisemitism argument itself had any great direct impact. It was something mostly confined to the chattering classes and is very low down among the reasons given for voting in the post election analysis.

I do think Corbyn’s inability to manage it and control the situation may well have impacted a lot more. It, along with the Brexit stance, made him look like a ditherer, the Brexit one is more excusable because it’s hard to say what other stance would have worked better when your voters are divided on the issue.

Corbyn was a bit too bland I think, personality wise. I haven’t been following the campaign and the elections but he doesn’t seem to elicit a whole lot of enthusiasm.

Everyone’s take will vary of course but his personal ratings outside his core fanbase have never been good. It was reminiscent of the last US election where the two candidates going in were both at all time low personal ratings, it’s just one was even lower than the other rather than genuine popularity.

I think it’s very difficult to win an election without a popular character and really Corbyn should have stepped down and handed the role over to someone who shared his agenda but could have had a wider appeal to the general public. That’s one that’s not really being clever in hindsight, those ratings were always there and I was saying it 2 years ago.

 

garjones wrote:

I think it’s very difficult to win an election without a popular character and really Corbyn should have stepped down and handed the role over to someone who shared his agenda but could have had a wider appeal to the general public.

I’m not sure Labour had anyone like that?

Also, the senior management of the Party were against his agenda and that was a big part of the internal opposition to him.

The party is split on actual policies as well as personalities.

SteveUK wrote:

I’m not sure Labour had anyone like that?

I’d agree there’s no clear saviour to select but his net approval rating as a leader was truly dreadful and always decreasing after 2017. There’s an element there that maybe anyone could do better.

 

 

 

Owen Smith was put up to replace Corbyn and crashed and burned. Then there was the misfire of the Change UK not-party, now defunct.

There’s going to be someone who gets the job of Labour Leader, but there’s no obvious candidate. No-one has demonstrated that they can bring the party together.

SteveUK wrote:

Owen Smith was put up to replace Corbyn and crashed and burned.

Owen Smith is a dick but regardless of that he failed as he went up against the prevailing direction of the party.

That’s different to what I was proposing of Corbyn taking it on the chin personally to endorse someone younger from his wing  and without a lot of the baggage he carried with him. Anyone Corbyn endorsed is a completely different scenario than someone who challenged him.

It’s a very good point that a unifying leader is a difficult proposition but that wasn’t really the one I was ever making, which was just one with less disastrous personal ratings going into the last election.

Just reading about a Thai nurse in north Wales who has learnt the language in her spare time to help her converse with dementia patients she looks after. While in Wales everyone can speak English fluently when dementia hits they can often revert to their first language only (I saw this when my grandmother was in hospital in her 90s after a stroke).

It is a story that says so much about what I like in the world but is against everything the current trend in politics seems to.

 

Over on the Last Leg, it was another Tory landslide:

Ballbag of the Year 2019: Jacob Rees-Mogg

Dick of the Year 2019: Boris Johnson

Dick of the Decade: David Cameron

The people have spoken.

Anonymous wrote:

If teachers are well paid what do you think is the cause of the teacher shortage in Germany? You could say workload but that is sort of a “egg or chicken” answer because if people signed up to become teachers more often it would automatically reduce the workload, right?

Nope. The high amount of working hours are not due to shortage, but a deliberate decision to hire less and let the people doing the job work more. The shortage came about only recently; workload has been like this for a long time.

There’s another very simple cause for the shortage in the primary sector, by the way: they didn’t create enough places for primary education students at the universities. Awesome strategic planning there!

Miqque wrote:

because this deserves a repeat.

Bad Germany, you’re not allowed to do business with ebil Russia.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/kremlin-us-sanctions-wont-stop-nord-stream-2-gas-pipeline-to-germany/a-51720728

njerry wrote:

Miqque wrote:

because this deserves a repeat.

Trees can’t vote guys.

The axe stopped them from unionising years ago.

This is quite an interesting interview with Kasparov.

 

DavidM wrote:

I mean, if antisemitism didn’t exist, a good PR flack should be manufacturing it, just so the party leader can look good subsequently squashing it on TV. That’s how you win hearts and minds

I’m sure it was a bit more significant in generally left circles, but the working class vote would be far more swayed by the party sales pitch. I, quite recently, was against the idea of parties, but parliamentary democracy only works with parties. The party offers a sales pitch to voters. If you vote for a party member then you trust they will align with the party platform. Otherwise, it opens the door to a cult of personality.

Obviously, most English voters support Brexit. Is that right? It appears to be. I think many of those voters are working class.So, if your sales pitch as a party is not strong on proceeding to separate from the EU, then you will get far less buyers at the ballot box.

Anonymous wrote:

Obviously, most English voters support Brexit. Is that right? It appears to be.

Most English would probably be correct, it was voted down in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was relatively close overall though and some polls have indicated that it could now be a small majority against (in just demographic shift as the younger generation are much more likely to support the EU).

The thing is though there isn’t as much of a two party system as in the US. Two do dominate but others frequently gain seats and strong vote shares. So an example I gave recently of a seat in north Wales the vote for parties supporting remain or a 2nd referendum were 21,000, the leave parties were 15,000 but the Tories won the seat in a first past the post system. In many cases the less Brexity vote was split like that.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Bad Germany, you’re not allowed to do business with ebil Russia.

Can’t have Putin spending all that doe to buy fucking Schröder for nothing either, though.

Please finish the sentence according to your own opinion:

If the Dems were smart, they should…

I say learn from what happened in the UK. How would you finish it?

Al-x wrote:

I say learn from what happened in the UK.

In what way? What should they change on the basis of that learning?

Dave wrote:

Al-x wrote:

I say learn from what happened in the UK.

In what way? What should they change on the basis of that learning?

Learn that the world has an inherent right-wing bias so they might as well give up?

There’s a narrative in the US that because Corbyn is from the left of the party then electing someone similarly politically inclined (i.e. Bernie Sanders) is going to fail. Not surprisingly that is coming a lot from centrist Democrat supporters.

I think that’s not entirely without some merit but it is a very simplistic reading of it all as we’ve discussed previously. It’s not very clear cut how much that was an element, Brexit and his personal appeal do appear much higher in the polling of why voters didn’t choose Labour this time. A lot of those policies have very high approval ratings but one finding was of over-promising which some found hard to believe. I think if you did it again you’d focus on the health and education stuff and hold the free broadband back.

We also have to remember that Labour and the Democrats went with very centrist, compromise manifestos in 2015 and 16 respectively and also lost. Personality is a large part and I think even moreso in the Presidential system where you aren’t also making local decisions.

 

Sanders has the minor advantage of being the most popular politician in the US

Exactly, which is why ‘like for like’ comparisons are very difficult. The shift away from Labour in leave voting seats on the back of “Get Brexit Done’ and the situation in Scotland where independence is a key issue are irrelevant to US politics.

It is true that Labour and the Democrats do actually take learnings from each other, there are some videos out there of Blair replicating speeches and slogans from Bill Clinton and then Obama doing the same with Blair speeches. So what works in one country can work and has worked in the other but you need to extrapolate the right ones.

If it were me all I’d advise the US candidates to do is keep a focus on their key 3 or 4 issues. if they have a plan to launch a flying doctor service in Alaska keep it to themselves and run it through the system after the election. Hit the key points as people have limited attention spans and keep them to universal concerns like health, education etc.

 

Also, if their strategy is “attack Trump and nothing else”, they’re going to lose; I think to moderates it looks like they’re kind of diving to his level, like petulant children “Donnie poked me” “Donnie said he would take my lunch money”

No candidate is ‘attack Trump and nothing else’.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>

garjones wrote:

It is true that Labour and the Democrats do actually take learnings from each other, there are some videos out there of Blair replicating speeches and slogans from Bill Clinton and then Obama doing the same with Blair speeches. So what works in one country can work and has worked in the other but you need to extrapolate the right ones

</p>
Biden got in trouble when he ran for president back 30 or so years ago for ripping off an English politician’s speech during his campaign. Corbyne seems far more leftist though than Sanders. However, the US really drove out the hard Soviet friendly left pretty quickly in the 50’s while the UK seemed more tolerant of it.

Corbyn is slightly further left than Sanders.  By European standards Sanders is a centre-left Social Democrat – he wants high taxes on the rich to pay for social programs.  But Corbyn is opposed to privatisation and had made noises about renationalising the railways and other assets that were sold off in the 80s and 90s. Pretty sure you’d get lynched in the US if you suggested the Federal Government do that.  Neither of them are leftists though, there’s no talk of the workers seizing the means of production on display

Corbyn’s actual policies given aren’t as far left as the media like to portray him. There were very modest tax rises in there, the free higher education stuff was basically the status quo until 15 years ago. It still is in Scotland and highly subsidised in Wales. Even the broadband stuff is actually copied from that capitalist success story South Korea. I did some analysis on it 12 years ago and even that far back their average internet speed was 45mb because the state had run the fibre project and installed it across the country. If my memory serves me right the US and UK were roughly the same level on that comparison chart of around 2mb.

The interesting thing with nationalisation is Britain is the developed country that has gone the furthest there. Thatcher actually advised Reagan on taking more utilities private as she’d done it first.

Only the UK and Chile have fully removed water supplies from government control, Amtrak that runs rail in the US is a quasi-government operation so rail services there are more public than the UK.

Exclusive: The Brits who won’t Brexit

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a thumping election victory last week on a campaign to “get Brexit done,” but not before some wealthy donors to his Conservative Party quietly took steps to stay inside the European Union.

Cyprus government documents seen by Reuters show that Conservative Party donors have sought citizenship of the island, an EU member state, since Britain voted to leave the bloc in 2016.

They include billionaire Alan Howard, one of Britain’s best-known hedge fund managers, and Jeremy Isaacs, the former head of Lehman Brothers for Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Cyprus’ interior ministry recommended that both men’s applications be approved, the government documents show.

The Conservative Party won another term in office last week after an election campaign that was dominated by Brexit. Johnson called the election to try to gain a majority in Parliament to push through his plan to take Britain out of the EU early next year.

That some Brits who made a career out of assessing risk have applied for second passports may suggest sagging confidence in Britain’s economy after it leaves the EU. A broker who makes his living handling such passports says he’s seen a surge of enquiries from Brits looking for ways to keep their European Union citizenship.

“Brexit is the only factor driving this,” says Paul Williams, chief executive of passport brokerage La Vida Golden Visas. The right to live, work, study or set up business anywhere in Europe, says Williams, “that all changes with Brexit.”

According to Britain’s Electoral Commission, Howard donated at least £129,000 to the Conservative Party personally and through his company between 2005 and 2009. Isaacs made personal and corporate donations of at least £626,500 to the party, £50,000 of it earmarked for The In Campaign, a group lobbying to remain in the EU.

The Cyprus government documents show that Howard, and Isaacs and his wife all sought Cypriot citizenship in 2018. A spokesperson for Howard declined to comment. Isaacs did not respond to requests for comment. His assistant said he was travelling and unavailable. The Conservative Party didn’t respond to requests for comment.

–SNIP–

Cypriot citizenship costs a minimum of 2 million euros of which at least 500,000 euros must be permanently invested. At no point in the application process is the applicant compelled to live in – or even visit – Cyprus. Cyprus is popular with people seeking a second passport because the entire investment can be in real estate, and it has low taxes.

–SNIP–

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-conservative-donors-exclus-idUSKBN1YN191

 

More in the link.

Well I am shocked that this is happening.  Shocked, I tell you.

It’s weird that you can sorta just buy citizenship. I think Peter Thiel and a bunch of billionaires bought New Zealand citizenship.

So…

If the Dems were smart, they should…

Al-x wrote:

So…

If the Dems were smart, they should…

Buy citizenship in Cyprus.

Al-x wrote:

So…

If the Dems were smart, they should…

bet on Trump winning.

Anonymous wrote:

It’s weird that you can sorta just buy citizenship. I think Peter Thiel and a bunch of billionaires bought New Zealand citizenship.

Estonia does it too in the EU. You can get a passport by investing, no need to reside there.

Yeah, but can you get a *blue* one?

(Oh, you can?

Oh.)

Astonishing isn’t it?

A blue passport while in the EU, surely that was impossible.

My niece just had her UK passport renewed.

Her new non-EU, all-UK passport is…………….

Red

…and made in France after a UK company lost the contract.

Ah, but only due to those pesky EU procurement rules.

Can Amy Klobuchar become a contender?

No.

Trump Retweets Meme That Jesus Likes Him Better Than Obama. Critics Raise Holy Hell.

And this is a thing:

JRCarter wrote:

Trump Retweets Meme That Jesus Likes Him Better Than Obama. Critics Raise Holy Hell.

Santa Claus gives him better gifts, too.

Of course, half the people responding will be atheists who suddenly become experts on Jesus and Christianity. Everything Trump does is designed to make his critics look like irrational rabid zombies and there are sufficient numbers out there who feel compelled to respond to every tiny, dumb thing he says that he always gets the reaction he wants.

 

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Argues Impeaching Trump Will Only ‘Embolden’ Him

So, apparently, it’s only by ballot or bullet that Trump could be getting out of office and bullet would probably make him a martyr.

JRCarter wrote:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Argues Impeaching Trump Will Only ‘Embolden’ Him

So, apparently, it’s only by ballot or bullet that Trump could be getting out of office and bullet would probably make him a martyr.

And even if he’s voted out of office, Trump and the extreme right will squawk that the election was rigged against him.

So,  what you need then is an Act of Gawd?

Ben wrote:

So,  what you need then is an Act of Gawd?

Oh, I’m sure God will catch flack if he doesn’t get re-elected.

Lewis said he will return to Washington D.C. soon to begin his treatment. While he plans to continue working, he noted, “I may miss a few votes during this period, but with God’s grace I will be back on the front lines soon.”

Best wishes to him on his battle and treatment. Maybe RBG can give him some tips on a speedy recovery. 

Interesting developments in Iraq. I think the US fell into the Iranian trap. Iran wanted to deflect attention from the protests against them and attack the US to make them retaliate against them and get the Iraqis to protest the US instead.

 

Chuckling at Corbyn’s New Year message.

White Star Line: 1912 was “quite a year” for Titanic pic.twitter.com/9yt17i06Tl

— Tom Hamilton (@thhamilton) December 31, 2019

JRCarter wrote:

So, apparently, it’s only by ballot or bullet that Trump could be getting out of office and bullet would probably make him a martyr.

It’s really crazy that an American President has abused the power of his office to blackmail another country in order to gain a personal election advantage, that nobody denies that this has happened (at this point) and that he is not going to be removed from office for it. This is a stain on the American democracy that will never be washed away; it is the moment modern American politics were publicly revealed to be not one bit better than the corruption of any banana republic. It is an entirely shameful moment in history and everybody involved in this will feel the effects for decades to come, because people will see them for the rotten, dirty conmen that they are. The Republicans are doing this to cling on to power, but long-term, they’re signing the death warrant for their party.

Trump is an oaf and he uses dirty tricks to get his way, but politics has been shit for a long time. Let’s not pretend this is the biggest stain on US politics. These two entrenched parties that just keep getting elected despite bringing misery to the world, that can’t seem to get dislodged, have been around for a while. I think the first past the post type of elections probaby make this worse, making it more difficult for new political players to get going. Not excusing Europe, we follow the US in lock step most of the time and our political climate is just as idiotic.

 

I think this is a chaotic time, and Trump is emblematic for it, but I don’t believe things are getting worse. Rather we see this shit has been going on for a long time. And I believe that except for environmental problems things are definitely getting better.

Anonymous wrote:

I think this is a chaotic time, and Trump is emblematic for it, but I don’t believe things are getting worse. Rather we see this shit has been going on for a long time. And I believe that except for environmental problems things are definitely getting better.

Things have taken a turn for the worse in the US under Trump. He’s been rolling back progress for the sake of right-wing financial interests and outdated beliefs.

Christian wrote:

The Republicans are doing this to cling on to power, but long-term, they’re signing the death warrant for their party.

On a regular basis people will say this about some political party, and yet that party always returns to power and appears undiminished by whatever they have done.

Basically, people will forgive and/or forget anything, no matter how heinous. The Republicans aren’t going anywhere.

And if you don’t believe that, explain why we still have any right-wing politicans anywhere in Europe post-1945.

Todd wrote:

Things have taken a turn for the worse in the US under Trump.

 

I understand that’s how a lot of people feel, and I sympathize. In the US and the UK I think politics is not in great shape. But I don’t think things are hopeless, certain tragedies and difficult situations notwithstanding. Overall, in the big picture, I think there is a slow motion towards things getting better.

 

Though if Trump starts a war with Iran, I might agree with the people claiming he’s the worst US president ever.

It’s both.  Society is going one way but other parts are electing politicians that are opposite.

DavidM wrote:

And if you don’t believe that, explain why we still have any right-wing politicans anywhere in Europe post-1945.

Well, it’s not like left wingers never hurt a fly.

 

Honestly these days the left isn’t smarter than the right in many ways. They embrace the stupidest causes, engage in divisive politics, and look down upon the people. If I look on some of the left wing ideas and sentiments being offered here in the Netherlands they remind me of the patronizing attitude of elites that are common in some right wing circles. Glib, nasty elitists. They deserve their losses in the elections. It’s not true for all left wing parties here though.

 

edit: I know “elites” is sort of a roundabout way for some to say Jews…I don’t mean it like that. There is just a kind of smugness, a sense of feeling superior, and dismissiveness in the public debate here in the Netherlands coming from the left, which seems elitist. The right does it too though in their own way. I think we need more debate, but maybe more humble, and more open to concerns from the other side.

 

DavidM wrote:

On a regular basis people will say this about some political party, and yet that party always returns to power and appears undiminished by whatever they have done. Basically, people will forgive and/or forget anything, no matter how heinous. The Republicans aren’t going anywhere.

Yeah, I know you’re right, you depressing fuck, David. Right now the thought of a reckoning somewhere down the line is the silver lining I need, don’t take it away from me!

 

Anonymous wrote:

Though if Trump starts a war with Iran, I might agree with the people claiming he’s the worst US president ever.

Yeah, like I said before, he’s got absolutely nothing on Bush Jr., and it’ll be a while before he can do that kind of damage. But he’s really managed to get quite a lot of Bad done in his hitherto short time, so who the fuck knows.

Anonymous wrote:

But I don’t think things are hopeless, certain tragedies and difficult situations notwithstanding. Overall, in the big picture, I think there is a slow motion towards things getting better.

I would like to agree, but currently, it’s becoming really hard to. The greatest problem with Trump is that he is a champion of deregulation and doing an insane amount of damage by dismantling any checks and controls on the economy. I expect the Tories to do the same in Britain over the next years.

In the EU, on the other hand, the awareness that there needs to be more and different regulation in a lot of areas (especially agriculture!) is on the rise, and so is the awareness of unsustainable production. But it’s all happening so fucking slowly and at the same time we’re generating more trash and CO2 and poison continually, and the best our leaders have to offer are bullshit measures that are only there to keep up appearances – and that’s for the countries that currently have a stable and democratic leadership that is admitting to the existence of the problems; in many cases those are so unstable that the next election cycle may bring about an unstable coalition that won’t be able to do shit at all. (This is basically what I am expecting to happen in Germany.) The big European countries are still all in the hands of neo-liberal economic models (France’s Macron, in spite of talking like a leftie in many ways, is a neo-liberal, too) and with no perspective of that changing: France is a mess politically, as is the UK, and Germany, too. And any changes that are bound to come over the next few years will only shift things further to the right.

Anonymous wrote:

Honestly these days the left isn’t smarter than the right in many ways. They embrace the stupidest causes, engage in divisive politics, and look down upon the people.

You know, I could live with a number of individual aspects of the political right. I can argue about the best ways to deal with the situation of the refugees. I can discuss different economic models. I can argue about the right measures to save the environment. But the problem is that the big political agendas of the right are so destructive that it will bring everything crashing down if they are allowed to keep holding the reigns. Because that is what further deregulation, privatisation and the refusal to strive for sustainability will bring. Those are the big issues. Those divisive policies of the left, the arrogance, the bickering, whatever it is that makes people hate the left: None of it matters. It’s fucking change or die, and we’re dying, is the simple fact.

This is worrying:

 

https://www.rt.com/news/477317-turkish-parliament-libya-troops/

Trump’s effects will last long after he’s gone. He’s stacked the courts with highly conservative, and often grossly unqualified, judges. More than anything that will be his legacy and the USA will feel its effects for decades.

Christian wrote:

It’s fucking change or die, and we’re dying, is the simple fact.

I’m not seeing it. Violence, war and poverty are generally on the decrease worldwide. I believe a side effect of being connected to the internet all the time and the “news” that is thrown into our faces is causing something like PTSD in a lot of people, me included sometimes. Like the thing going on with Turkey and Libya now.  I’m not sayng the internet is bad, quite the opposite, but this is a thing we have to take into account.

 

We just need to avoid political extremes, and find a cure for environmental problems. (A cure that is not putting a tax on poor people making it harder to heat their homes.)

Boris Johnson is roundly criticized heading into the December elections, yet wins by a big majority.

Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted on charges of corruption, yet gets 70% of the vote in a primary election last week.

Is it paranoia to think the US election process isn’t the only one that is being manipulated by outside forces?

njerry wrote:

Is it paranoia to think the US election process isn’t the only one that is being manipulated by outside forces?

Nope. Carole Cadwalladr in The Observer newspaper has documented the interference into British politics, in the Brexit vote and later elections.

Here’s an account of Johnson meeting with Russian billionaire oligarch Alexander Lebedev last year:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/17/boris-johnson-met-alexander-lebedev-without-security-after-nato-summit

 

Oh yeah, I wonder if we’ll get the Russia report now that the election’s “settled”. I’m still surprised no-one (especially an out-going MP on the select committee) leaked it during the election, frankly.

You all should seek out Oh Dear by Adam Curtis. Worth a watch if you’ve not seen. Provides some insight re the Grey Cardinal.

Cadwalladr’s TED talk is good. Also The Great Hack and Get Me Roger Stone on Netflix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

 

The games Putin plays, we play them too. And better, judging the course of history.

 

There is an interesting documentary the New York Times did about Russian (Soviet when they started) psy-ops. There’s also the videos of Yuri Bezmenov detailing how it’s done. Surkov sort of got that going under Putin, but it’s an older game. But still it’s just some strikes in a battle going both ways.  It’s funny in the NYT documentary when it’s asked, “but didn’t we do it too?” The guy goes, uhhhhmmm yeah…and nothing further is said about it.

 

I think the mess Libya turned into was a major eye opener for me. And Putin saying about that, wherever the US goes they leave behind ruin. And after that Syria and Ukraine of course. In a way, you could see what Russia is doing is self defense. They’re not stupid, they see the US is coming after them and want another Yeltsin and Balkanization. There are a bunch of interviews on youtube PBS did about Russia and the elections. And Julia Ioffe has a revealing moment where she says that: “Putin isn’t stupid. He’s trying to turn the tide on Westernization, but it’s coming for him no matter what.” That’s our agenda. Turning the whole world into us.

 

 

Several sources are reporting the US killed Qasem Soleimani in a drone attack at Baghdad airport, the most senior Iranian military figure. This is like Iran assassinating James Mattis. Things will happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Though if Trump starts a war with Iran, I might agree with the people claiming he’s the worst US president ever.

Anonymous wrote:

Several sources are reporting the US killed Qasem Soleimani in a drone attack at Baghdad airport, the most senior Iranian military figure. This is like Iran assassinating James Mattis. Things will happen.

You were saying?

Yep…that’s a bit of a weird coincidence. I’m afraid this is bad shit. If Iraq decides to tell the US to fuck off, there could be war from Iran to the coast of Lebanon. That’s kind of a big area.

 

Anonymous wrote:

The games Putin plays, we play them too.

Very true but equally that doesn’t remove the concern when they are affecting your institutions. I can’t really sit complacently about stirring up far right sentiments in the UK because of an operation from the CIA 60 years ago (and I know countless other examples to add across the years too, including ones instigated by Britain).

It displays hypocrisy but also two wrongs don’t make a right.

 

 

garjones wrote:

Very true but equally that doesn’t remove the concern when they are affecting your institutions.

Yes but you can’t call out the behavior as unfair when you’re doing it too. It would be like two people fighting and one of them protesting because the other one has a knife while he has one himself.

 

It’s not something we just did 60 years ago, we constantly try to influence thoughts and political processes in coutries we disagree with. Of course we do it for a good cause, Western values and democracy. Imagine some Iranian politician in the streets of Washington during anti-government riots, giving cookies and egging people on. That’s what we did in Ukraine. We’d drone him to hell.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Yes but you can’t call out the behavior as unfair when you’re doing it too.

You can if you’ve consistently objected to it being done. A major part of the reason you know about these propaganda campaigns is they’ve been exposed by journalists and campaigners within the offending countries or their allies. It’s extensively covered by the likes of John Pilger, Naomi Klein and Adam Curtis. None of this should be a revelation to anyone.

Then the question is ‘who’ is calling out. Trump and Johnson as the main representatives of their governments seem quite happy with it.

None of that changes the fact that I’m not.

 

Well, Trump needed to do something to push the impeachment thing off the front pages. It was inevitable.

garjones wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes but you can’t call out the behavior as unfair when you’re doing it too.

You can if you’ve consistently objected to it being done. A major part of the reason you know about these propaganda campaigns is they’ve been exposed by journalists and campaigners within the offending countries or their allies. It’s extensively covered by the likes of John Pilger, Naomi Klein and Adam Curtis. None of this should be a revelation to anyone.

Then the question is ‘who’ is calling out. Trump and Johnson as the main representatives of their governments seem quite happy with it.

None of that changes the fact that I’m not.

 

Fair enough, the public can call it out, but the politcians of the Democrats treating it like some great sin on the part of Russia is ridiculous when they do it themselves.

 

What Russia did is still small potatoes, yes they put some shit on facebook about Hillary eating children but that’s something Alex Jones has been saying for years. I doubt it swayed a lot of voters. (And it’s true btw.)

Anonymous wrote:

and find a cure for environmental problems. (A cure that is not putting a tax on poor people making it harder to heat their homes.)

We had that here; a sensible carbon price that was paired with compensation for households – it worked (emissions went down, household income went up), but Murdoch devoted his resources to rubbishing it, and he shepherded ultra-conservative Tony Abbott into power (his primary campaign vow was to repeal the “Carbon Tax” (it was never a tax)).

DavidM wrote:

On a regular basis people will say this about some political party, and yet that party always returns to power and appears undiminished by whatever they have done.

I wasn’t around then and haven’t looked at the contemporaneous political writing, but after Watergate and Nixon resigning, wouldn’t people have thought that the Republican brand would be so damaged that they’d be out of the White House for two terms at the very least?

Andrew wrote:

We had that here

We did it too and it is bullshit, they increased sales tax and energy tax because giving the government money stops climate change somehow. The compensation by no means makes up for the burden on poor households. Two left wing parties voted against it.

njerry wrote:

Well, Trump needed to do something to push the impeachment thing off the front pages. It was inevitable.

and this is what is the most disgusting thing.  He planned it very well. He got his chance to bitch, moan, and ridicule the Dems during the house investigation but now with the Republican controlled senate investigation starting, he pulled out this trick. Not only was it inevitable but we knew when it would happen as well.