The Political Thread

[Dandontdare]

bugger - I forgot to vote for the first time in ages. I'm always nagging at people who don't bother to vote, it's a privilege that people fought and died for and if you don't take part, you've got no right to complain about who gets in. 

[The Legendary Shark]

...if you don't take part, you've got no right to complain about who gets in. 

Rubbish. It seems to me that those who don't vote because the candidates presented are unsuitable to hold any form of public office have just as much right to complain, and possibly even more of a right, than those who just vote for a candidate irrespective of their suitability because it is their 'duty'. Now, if a 'None Of The Above' option existed on ballot papers then I might agree with this 'don't vote, don't complain' nonsense - but until then, in a free and democratic country, the right not to vote is just as valid as the right to vote.

And on a slightly more incendiary note, nobody ever fought and died for me - they fought and died for politics, resources and the interests of people who care not one shit for me, my community or my country. I do not for one second dispute the bravery or competence of our armed forces - but rather that thanking them for what they are doing for 'me' I pity them for fighting for lies. If the armed forces want my thanks, they should invade the City of London and Wall Street - I'd put my name to that operation in a heartbeat but if anyone thinks that killing Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Iranians and whoever the Hell else we're kicking at the moment is what I want then they are sadly and spectacularly mistaken.

[Richmond Clements]

Rubbish.

No it's not. I don't see how in a ballot with sometimes dozens of names on it, you could not find one person to vote for.
You wouldn't vote for the local single issue candidate who's trying to save a hospital or school, for example?

And on a slightly more incendiary note, nobody ever fought and died for me - they fought and died for politics

No, not incendiary. Just utter fucking bullshit.

[The Legendary Shark]

Rubbish.

No it's not. I don't see how in a ballot with sometimes dozens of names on it, you could not find one person to vote for.
You wouldn't vote for the local single issue candidate who's trying to save a hospital or school, for example?

In all honesty, no - I wouldn't vote for a single-issue candidate in a society simply bursting with multiple issues. Now, if a local candidate stood for a single issue like saving a school and nothing else, I would vote for them to do that and then step down when the school is saved.

And on a slightly more incendiary note, nobody ever fought and died for me - they fought and died for politics

No, not incendiary. Just utter fucking bullshit.

Why? No Iraqi ever shot at me or my family or at anyone I know. Maybe you've had a different experience, though.

[vzzbux]

Well maybe an older member of your family has been shot at i.e. first or second world war.
To note I have been shot at on a peace keeping tour in Croatia whilst driving along the boarder to Bosnia in a clearly marked military ambulance. Also random shells fall close to our position in Saudi Arabia on the boarder to Iraq waiting for the land push to start.





V

[Frank]

I don't see how in a ballot with sometimes dozens of names on it, you could not find one person to vote for.
You wouldn't vote for the local single issue candidate who's trying to save a hospital or school, for example?

I know The Shark was making a more general point about democracy, but that ballot paper CF posted for the Commissioner Gordon vote featured two independents and a bunch of candidates sponsored by political parties. Quite why the cancer of party politics should contaminate ballots for positions such as Commissioner and Mayor, which involve issues on which I'd imagine most folk don't think along traditional party lines, is beyond me. If all these elections do is encourage folk to vote in exactly the same way they do at every other election - and most voters are frighteningly loyal - they'll change precisely fuck all.

And on a slightly more incendiary note, nobody ever fought and died for me - they fought and died for politics

No, not incendiary. Just utter fucking bullshit.

True. I'd argue there's almost always no excuse for war, but WWII always has anyone advancing that argument looking at their feet and mumbling uncertainly. Having said that, everyone who fought in the Battle of Britain was unquestionably fighting for my freedom, those who (in good faith) participated in the fire bombing of Dresden were probably doing something quite different. It's always more complicated and nuanced than arguments like those above can convey.

[The Legendary Shark]

And WWII began because the Allies stripped Germany of everything after WWI - we even took their crops, livestock, rolling stock and factory machinery as 'compensation'. To add to this, when the Germans tried to print their own money for internal use, the Allies decided what this money would be worth (fuck all) thereby causing the now famous hyperinflation. It was the Allies who created the environment in which the National Socialist Party rose to power. I'm not suggesting that WWII was entirely the fault of the Allies but if you keep on kicking a country when it's down then one day, it's going to kick back and kick back hard.

[The Legendary Shark]

To digress, a corporation named Cuadrilla wants to start hydraulic fracturing for gas around my village and surrounding areas. We have researched this process, colloquially known as 'fraccing', and found much that concerns us about this process. Resistance to this project is strong amongst both the general population and our local councillors.

There was recently a vote on whether to allow this process to go ahead and, guess what? Cuadrilla won by one vote. They would not have won if the Whip's Office in London hadn't sent some people down to tell our local councillors how to vote. Democracy? When there's a profit to be made? Yeah, right...

[Frank]

And WWII began because the Allies stripped Germany of everything after WWI - we even took their crops, livestock, rolling stock and factory machinery as 'compensation'. To add to this, when the Germans tried to print their own money for internal use, the Allies decided what this money would be worth (fuck all) thereby causing the now famous hyperinflation. It was the Allies who created the environment in which the National Socialist Party rose to power. I'm not suggesting that WWII was entirely the fault of the Allies but if you keep on kicking a country when it's down then one day, it's going to kick back and kick back hard.

Without disagreeing, countries like Poland were invaded, humiliated, impoverished and enslaved by various empires for centuries without ever rising up and trying to wreak their revenge on any other nations, let alone trying to annihalate an entire people (though they shared Germany's rampant anti-semitism). If you keep tracing these things back you can always find someone else responsible for making you act like a dick (see my comments on Israel/Palestine on previous page); at some point you've got to accept responsibility for your own (collective) actions.

[The Legendary Shark]

Yes absolutely, we can sit and argue about who did what to whom and we'll be back 2,000 years or more before we're done. The point is that we must recognise the flaws and fix them instead of going down the same old paths draped in national flags and politically-induced jingoism designed to demonise the foreign humans and their inhuman ways whilst virtually canonising our local humans and their exemplary ways.

[Professor Bear]

I like the odd war now and then to keep my BAE and Monsanto stock good and healthy.

[Frank]

Yes absolutely, we can sit and argue about who did what to whom and we'll be back 2,000 years or more before we're done. The point is that we must recognise the flaws and fix them instead of going down the same old paths draped in national flags and politically-induced jingoism designed to demonise the foreign humans and their inhuman ways whilst virtually canonising our local humans and their exemplary ways.

"Consider for instance, Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain, published by Portobello Books, which relates the British torture of Nazi POWs during and after World War Two. It describes "the horrifying interrogation methods that belie our proud boast that we fought a clean war." (tinyurl.com/9ju64mj)

And the excellent Unpatriotic History of the Second World War by James Heartfield (Zero Books). It describes how British officers pushed in front of their men to escape at Dunkirk.  It relates the Allied policy of taking no prisoners when fighting against the Japanese.  It talks about the British responsibility for the Bengal famine in which 1.5 million to 4 million people died.  It was not a natural thing, "the cause of the famine was an order from Churchill to starve the Bengalis, the order was called the Rice Denial policy."

Actually, I think it's patriotic to finally recognize that Britain is no different to any other country and is not morally superior – which is certainly what I was taught at school.  Or rather lied to at school.  I can remember being told how evil the Mau Mau freedom fighters in Kenya were. Ditto freedom fighters in Aden, Malaya and Cyprus. Anyone who challenges Britain and stop it stealing their wealth must – by definition – be evil."

https://patmills.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/hammerstein-vs-the-us-president/

[Spikes]

Having said that, everyone who fought in the Battle of Britain was unquestionably fighting for my freedom, those who (in good faith) participated in the fire bombing of Dresden were probably doing something quite different.

However controversial Bomber Command's (along with the USAF) methods were, i think they were unquestionably fighting for our collective freedoms as well.

[The Legendary Shark]

Why 'unquestionably'? Maybe that's what the actual combatants thought and were led to believe, but in the eyes of the sponsors of the war it didn't (and still doesn't) matter in the slightest who wins and who loses. So long as the winners have a privately controlled central bank through which governments and populations can be controlled, that's all that mattered (and still is). From that point of view, WWII had no winners.

[Professor Bear]

Harking back to the petulent "if you don't vote you can't complain" argument, for those not knowledgeable, in NI you basically have a choice between terrorist apologists, communists, religious bigots, white power affiliates,  and - most likely - some bloke you've known all your life who lives on your street who you wouldn't trust to shit himself let alone run any kind of public office, and just to make things even better, every single candidate is an anti-abortionist, except the fucking communist.
I do not vote because I would not piss on these people if they were on fire, and I'll gripe all I want about politics, thank you.  You don't like them apples, you can suck my dick, son.