The Political Thread

[Hawkmumbler]

It's funny looking back at the Obama administration nowadays as some kind of 'golden era' of US diplomacy and civil rights but....yeah no.

As a wise old Sharky so often says, 'Same shit, different captain'. Only this time the captain isn't quite such a spoilt bore.

Edit: I should probably say, 4 years ago I would have believed all that about Obama, but I was a dumb kid so 2016 Zac can take a long walk off a short pier.

[Funt Solo]

I find that 'Same shit, different captain' stuff doesn't really hold water when you hold it up to the real lives being lived by real people who are really the ones that suffer under the real policies.

For real.

Example: Obama opened up access to healthcare for people who had no access to healthcare. Trump shut down access to healthcare as much as he could get away with. Or: Obama didn't enact a deliberate policy to separate migrant children from their families - Trump did. Trump caused the deaths of five people by fomenting a riot.

These are real policy effects on real people - having anyone (not anyone in particular) but anyone come along and say that it doesn't make any difference just projects a shallow, vacuous view of reality. Not wise, at all: the owl is blind, but has the trappings and beliefs of the far-sighted.

You might not like statism, but you can't pretend that it doesn't exist as a framework, and that within that framework there are more or less preferential policies. (Well, you can pretend whatever you like, but I'm sure you get my drift.)

[JayzusB.Christ]

You beat me to it, Funt, but...

'Same shit, different captain'. Only this time the captain isn't quite such a spoilt bore.

Badness is baked into the job of running the US.  But it's not as simple as just not liking the personality of the guy in charge.  Of course Obama wasn't a paragon of virtue, and Biden won't be either - the job forbids it.  But... there are administrations who actively campaign against saving the environment, and those who support it.  There are administrations who don't try to ban all Muslims from entering, and those who don't.  There are presidents who refuse to condemn the KKK, and those who make a black woman their VP.  And there are those who shrug responsibility while hundreds of thousands die, and those who make the pandemic their number 1 priority. 

It won't be perfect.  Biden, for all Trump's rhetoric, is certainly no liberal.  But it's better.

[IndigoPrime]

You get the same shit here, with people arguing Blair was no different from the Tories. It's bollocks.

[shaolin_monkey]

You get the same shit here, with people arguing Blair was no different from the Tories. It's bollocks.

Aye. If it wasn't for his horrendous decision re Iraq, the record of the last Labour government is pretty damn good in terms of social reform, NHS funding, in fact huge spending on public services up and down the U.K. . It was definitely going in the right direction.

[IndigoPrime]

That's the thing. Some people can't deal with trends/movement/consensus. There was a lot of chat recently on Twitter about an electoral pact in 2024. Some Labour folks were dead against involving the Lib Dems. Why? One person told me it's because LDs would never agree that "the dream" for the UK is to "end capitalism". First, that isn't the dream of the majority—and even the Greens want a mixed economy! But also, congratulations, Labour fans, because in removing the Lib Dems from the equation, you just lost any hope of leading a coalition at the next GE. (Ironically, Best for Britain polling suggests that with LD support, Labour could even get a majority, which is interesting.)

All of this is even more frustrating when you bother to read manifestos and examine key policy. There is so much overlap between Labour/SNP/LD/Plaid/Green. I'm not saying working together would be simple, but there's plenty on which they could agree—and those things would be a world away from the extremist shitshow we now find ourselves dealing with.

It's depressing. There is a route to getting the Tories out and keeping them out, but it's just not going to happen, because it requires Labour and the Lib Dems to get over themselves, for the Greens to yet again put the good of the country before their own ability to remain solvent, the SNP to pause (but not abandon) indy ambitions, and also for Labour to get behind PR for the Commons. If that could all happen, we'd end up with a shift in electoral support for all parties, but probably (judging by polling/elections since the 1970s) a lot of Labour-led coalitions. Instead: Tory majority, albeit on as little as 35% of the popular vote.

[TordelBack]

If it wasn't for his horrendous decision re Iraq, ...

Oh, just that little thing.

This is the point being made. Things might get better for some, and that's very important,  but as long as western government is just a revolving Chair for a permanent committee of local and international monied interests, the rest of us are fucked.

I can be delighted to see the turd Trump rejected in favour of someone who can at least pass as a human being and may start to make improvements, and still be convinced that no substantial change will be permitted.

I'd like to make some disparaging remark about centrists, as is the fashion, but Biden would have a long walk left to even get to the centre.

[IndigoPrime]

Thing is, we increasingly end up in a situation where tribalism won't shift countries with FPTP. So we can either sit there and complain about Blair's massive error of judgement, Lib Dems being a bit Tory, etc, and again experience an electoral disaster or we can figure out how to work together and oust the shitbags running the country and dramatically shifting the Overton window to the right.

We currently have a government whose headline policies map to 1970s-era NF, and much of that is down to Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP not getting their shit together from 2016–2019. There were multiple pathways to stop the Tories and Brexit, but hubris and delusion got in the way from every corner, from Labour sitting on its hands whenever a revoke backstop was suggested to the Lib Dems bafflingly thinking Swinson could become PM. But worse: the Tories are going to win again unless we deal with this shit.

[The Legendary Shark]

It is a constant source of disappointment to me that we are still deeply mired in dealing with the consequences of Blair's crimes. No following government has put this right. People are still dying. Fortunes are still swelling. The Punch and Judy show continues. The captivated children laugh and scream and cry out, "He's behind you!" while touts and pickpockets infiltrate the crowds.

Nothing of consequence changes.

Governments are just cowboys, herding the cattle, the real power lies with the ranch owners who live in the Big Houses. However the cowboys manage the herds is largely immaterial so long as they stay away from the Big Houses, the occupants of which make their own rules.

Which is a crude and simplistic analogy for a delicate and complex situation, of course, but a useful preliminary sketch nonetheless.

In short, I want nothing to do with the cowboys.

When the banks crash again, which party will deny them a bail-out at our expense? when they need some beef up at the Big House, which cowboy will toss aside his lasso? A few minor ones, maybe, but none of the strongest - and you don't get strong going against the vesteds.

And so I decline to take part in a system that gives me no say in the things it wants me to pay for. If NHS funding is indistinguishable from, and more importantly reliant upon corporate bail-outs, if paying for roads cannot be accomplished without paying for bombs, then I cannot in all good conscience go along with that. So I live outside and interact with the government's machinations as little as possible. I ask nothing of it, take nothing from it, give nothing to it.

I simply live my life as best I can, striving to be of use to the little community on whose shores I washed up some few years ago. To be of use and to enjoy my life and, for the moment at least, I am succeeding at both.

I have no illusions that one day they will come for me, probably with their hands out, and that I must say no. After that, well, I guess I'll get chewed up and spat out again and have to start from scratch again, again.

TL;DR - They're all a bunch of cowboys.

[JayzusB.Christ]

You might not like statism, but you can't pretend that it doesn't exist as a framework, and that within that framework there are more or less preferential policies. (Well, you can pretend whatever you like, but I'm sure you get my drift.)

100% this.  The system is a shitshow and I abhor it, but in my book one vote for more decent candidate is worth a thousand online rants.

[The Legendary Shark]

Where do I say the system doesn't exist? If it doesn't exist, I may as well be against unicorns.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Where do I say the system doesn't exist? If it doesn't exist, I may as well be against unicorns.

I never said you did.

[IndigoPrime]

My take is I want change, but 1) my personal position is not a majority one, and 2) I recognise that any broad and sustainable shift in a more progressive direction is a good one.

I recall being on a Green Party Facebook group one time when there was an almighty row about coalitions. One person started ranting that the party could never form even an agreement with a ruling party if they were in favour of retaining nuclear power. This seemed a quite popular opinion. Someone then asked how the Greens ever expected to be a viable party, then, rather than a protest group. "When we have a majority Green Party government" was the reply.

And this is the problem. The Greens, at best, poll in the low single figures. If Corbyn Labour was its own thing, it'd perhaps poll up to 25%. But these are not majority positions. A majority should come from consensus, collaboration and, yes, compromise. Better to have some of what you want than nothing. I hope everyone realises that when the next general election rolls around, but I fear they won't.

[Funt Solo]

So, the argument seems to have shifted from "there's no difference" to "there's no substantive difference", which (of course) is a position it's difficult to argue against, as one person's substantive is another person's trivial.

But, even there, there's evidence that change has been measurably substantive. What I sense about people's "ho hum - Biden's no different really" or "riots at the Capitol - meh, we've seen this before" is that (well, firstly, they're provably wrong - ha!) those cynical views are coming from a place of incredible privilege. That the differences don't directly affect you right now - I get. It's because you're privileged and safe.

But, to substance:

US hate crime highest in more than a decade

And, this article on militia groups shows a rise in militancy:



And I gave other examples in my previous post - but people somehow can brush all of that aside - all of those real effects on real people and just "meh" it away into a cynical spin cycle of same old same old. How do you ever expect to get to what you consider the real (your version of substantive) change if you don't actually accept any sort of movement in that direction as being worthy of note?

I suppose there's no point in even attempting to climb the hill - it's just too high. (But we could make it to the other side of the car park, surely, Shirley? And from there..)

[The Legendary Shark]

Where do I say the system doesn't exist? If it doesn't exist, I may as well be against unicorns.

I never said you did.

No, but it is in the first sentence of the quote you posted (which I seem to recall was originally directed at me anyway), which you followed up immediately with "100% this." Sorry if I misunderstood.