If you buy the Sun newspaper you are spitting on the graves of those who died at Hillsborough. If you subscribe to Sky or buy the Times, you paid for Bush's re-election and the pro-Iraq war propaganda. If you buy the Daily Mail or Express or Telegraph, read the Metro or buy the Evening Standard, you contributed to the rising measles death toll over MMR ignorance or the deaths of children and the most vulnerable as cars squeeze the lifeblood out of our cities with their pollution, noise and excess speed encouraged by the 'speeding culture' and 'anti-camera' brigade. The Daily Mail/Evening Standard in particular has eroded the morality of the most fortunate whose greed has gloated over rising inequality, poverty and crime as they dodge their tax responsibilities. Reading a tabloid press that is rabidly right-wing and ignoring their obvious intrusions into people's private lives while hypocritically claiming the moral high ground over what...the smoking ban or CCTV - give me strength!!!
It is YOU who have made the Labour party rightwing, it is YOU who cannot claim innocence over Iraq, or the Thatcherite greed of the few that has run us into recession and eroded our public services and made the poor pay more tax than the rich. And ultimately it will be YOU that inflicts on the liberal majority yet another Tory government that is morally bankrupt (aided and abetted by a undemocratic electoral system).
The estates will erupt, and crime, poverty and sheer misery will explode because of the cowardly short term, money grabbing indecency of the few who believe the right-wing nonsense in the papers. It is time to take a look at how much you should be allowed to whinge on these issues when you clearly are not innocent of any of the crimes you accuse politicians of. If you really do believe in responsibility, then ask yourself how much you really can blame the politicians for all of your ills and how much is down to your own bloody minded, ignorant greed.
Neil,
ReplyDeleteyou sound like you've caught bunker fever.
I don't buy newspapers because I despise their behaviour - I commented as much on the Max Mosely affair. My attitude to privacy applies to the media as well as the state - indeed, the two are corrupt, misanthropic partners in crime as far as I am concerned and I wish a plague on all their houses.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do blame politicians for the current state of politics in the UK - they are responsible for their behaviour and their behaviour is as reprehensible as that of the rags that report on them.
I do blame the people for their apathy, but few of us are guilty of the crimes committed by politicians.
Word Verification: LITAR... hmmmm
It is YOU who have made the Labour party rightwing
ReplyDeleteNo Neil, it is tribal Labourites like you who have made the Labour party the right wing sewer that it is today. You chose to contribute subs to a party that is directly responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. You bear direct moral responsibility for those actions.
Stephen: If everyone who opposed the war had joined the Labour party they could have got the leader changed and stopped the UK backing Bush (note: they couldn't have stopped the war because it was US led). What has made the Labour party more right-wing are all the lefties who have left the party NOT the ones like me who have stayed.
ReplyDeleteSo surely it is all these people who have blood on their hands.
And anyway, as I have said - those who buy the Sun, Mail, etc are propping up media moguls who have more influence over the Labour party than any individual member will ever have.
Neil,
ReplyDeleteyou're making a ludicrously fallacious argument. You're blaming people for not joining a party, the policies of which they oppose. On this basis, you are to blame for the nasty old tory party, because you didn't follow your own advice and join it. You are also to blame for the BNP because you refused to join that party too. Just think how you could have helped bring the BNP into the mainstream!
Stephen is bang on. People like you are to blame for the monstrous labour government because you will support them whatever they do, and justify all the things that you would condemn if it was done by the 'other side' (of the same coin).
TT: Only TWO parties can realistically head a government in this country under our present undemocratic electoral system. Of those TWO, only ONE - the Labour party, allows its members any say over policy. So, no joining the BNP and Tories would make no difference, however joining the Labour party can make a difference. Therefore your argument falls down.
ReplyDeleteAs for condemning the Labour party - I condemn their policies virtually every week - I have made it more than clear I want Brown out - I am hardly a tribalist, am I?
You are indeed a tribalist, because no matter how much you condemn the policies of your party, it is just that - your party, and so you are no threat to the leadership. They know they don't have to worry about your vote, so they can turn their attentions to the Sun and Daily Mail readers.
ReplyDeleteSo, you're like the dutiful wife who puts up with her husband's philandering. The husband can do what he likes, because you'll always be there for him.
If everyone who opposed the war had joined the Labour party they could have got the leader changed and stopped the UK backing Bush (note: they couldn't have stopped the war because it was US led)
ReplyDeleteSo that basis we should all join the BNP so that we can change it from a racist nationalist party to something more respectable!
What has made the Labour party more right-wing are all the lefties who have left the party NOT the ones like me who have stayed
Like me, a lot of those lefties who left were anti-authoritarians. It was made very clear to us that caring about civil liberties was considered 'pro-crime'. Sorry, but your party can't insult and libel us and still expect our support.
TT: Your wife analogy is not a good one because it conjures up images of a range of happy financial and emotional choices becoming available for the wife.
ReplyDeleteTo simulate reality under our electoral system, lets imagine we are talking about the developing world and a deeply religious country where the choice is between remaining married or almost certainly being stoned to death, under those circumstances it is wise to remain married and make the best of it.
Stephen: "on that basis, we should all join the BNP so that we can change it"
ReplyDeleteThe Labour party is a democratic party and one with much more influence - it wouldn't make sense to join the BNP, whereas the Labour party is more open to change.
But Neil, isn't that the point, that there is no effective democratic voice in the Labour party. The nomenclatura of the party now control debate and policy. I am not comparing the Labour party to the BNP but I do not believe that there is any way for people like me to exert any influence if I were to rejoin the party. I believe the best way forward is through guerilla politics, single issue politics.
ReplyDeleteStephen: Being a member of the Labour party does not stop 'guerilla political activity'. Do both.
ReplyDeleteJust 10 new active members would be enough to take over a ward, 30 a constituency. Around 150 members pick an MP - an MP has to seek re-election every year. Just 40,000 new members across the country could sack every Labour MP - i.e. replace the whole government over a 12 month period - that is real power. Plus, the whole policy debate is set at conference. Why this doesn't happen is because people are ignorant and apathetic about what can be done and also that the radicals are outnumbered, not because it isn't possible!
But Neil, I don't belong in the Labour party any more. I believe in individual rights, the rule of law, civil liberties, democracy and tolerance, even for views that personally I may not subscribe to. Can you honestly tell me that there is at most an infinitesimal rump that shares those beliefs in the present Labour party?
ReplyDeletestephen: "Can you honestly tell me that there is at most an infinitesimal rump that shares those beliefs [individual rights, rule of law, civil liberty, democracy, tolerance] in the present Labour party?"
ReplyDeleteI honestly believe that most Labour party members believe in those things - certainly more than any other party members I have met. I think the problem is that, what you mean by those things and what I mean by them differ.
'If you buy the Daily Mail or Express or Telegraph, read the Metro or buy the Evening Standard, you contributed to the rising measles death toll over MMR ignorance or the deaths of children and the most vulnerable as cars squeeze the lifeblood out of our cities with their pollution, noise and excess speed encouraged by the 'speeding culture' and 'anti-camera' brigade.'
ReplyDeletePeriodically I buy the Standard for my M-I-L. She is nearly 90. I shall pass on your concerns that she might be complicit in the mass murder of the innocents.
I rather think she might think that you are a twat.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem - it was the ignorant and apathetic majority that allowed the Nazis into power, but it was the US banks that funded them.
ReplyDeleteit was the ignorant and apathetic majority that allowed the Nazis into power, but it was the US banks that funded them
ReplyDeleteYou don't half talk some shit. The Nazis came to power in the midst of the Depression, when the working class was polarised between supporting the Communists and the Nazis. The last elections of the Weimar Republic were plagued by violence and intimidation from Nazi and Communist private armies. Voter apathy was not a significant factor in the minority Nazi government coming to power on 30th January 1933.
Dear God man, either stop taking the pills or seek a doctor. This post reminds me of the worst of the crazies visiting speaker's corner.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely hope that you wrote this while pissed and will be better in the morning.
All the best
Stephen: "Voter apathy was not a significant factor in the minority Nazi government coming to power on 30th January 1933".
ReplyDeleteYou could say that - but the middle classes (who always hold the power) chose Hitler over the alternatives and so did the US banks. The Tories entered into coalition with the Nazis to stop the Communists. The majority of working class kept quiet initially (maybe through fear) but then embraced Nazi-ism.
Falco: No pills, thrills or bellyaches - just some hard truths. Which bits do you find inaccurate? Did the Daily Mail group not push anti-MMR propaganda or the Murdoch papers not push pro-Iraq war propaganda? etc etc.
ReplyDelete