Ideology - you are being misinformed!

[Staunton 18]

The reality is that as the world changes ever faster, your vote should change, because you are changing to...

 

The most alarming political threat comes not from the orthodox doctirnes of neoliberalism, perverted and cynical as they are, but from the far right reaction to the destructions wrought by neoliberal policies across the so-called Western democracies. People feel in their guts that something is wrong, but often have no analysis to help them identify where the fault lies. And so we have witnessed the embarrasment of Greece on behalf of the German Bundesbank, the vilification of desperate migrants on the shores of the Mediteranean, the disintegration of Europe that is now under way, and the election of the ridiculous Donald Trump, installed with the votes of the so-called flyover-states, the working poor who stand to lose the most from Trump's unrestrained and irrational quasi-republicanism. And here in the Britain UKIP and their lying tory partners succeeded in fooling their benighted core voters in Sunderland, devastating their last economic hopes.

 

The real danger that the vicious excesses of neoliberalism have generated is from the far-right populist appeal. Do we want this force to triumph, or should we seek a more inclusive, egalitarian form of domestic politics and a more responsive and restrained foreign policy?

[swarfendor437 14]

How is this misinformed? I know what it is and wrote as much in my list...

 

You've quoted a small snippet of it, and I wrote it correctly by writing 'a few' in this part of the post.

 

Ideologists can be found in any part of the political spectrum, and anarchism is also an ideology of the same type. I'd think we'd be hard pushed to find many anarchists who will vote Tory, don't you agree?

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry no I don't agree - anarchy means 'UDI' but without any government - so I was going to vote but now I have returned to my 'Don't Vote' status - having listened to 'The Chant has Begun' by Level 42 you'll understand why!

[Pinkman 10]

I'm not sure of your point here..are you saying that only Mr Corbyn should be allowed on TV to state his case and the other "minority" parties shouldn't be there?

 

That would be absurd but; not being resident in Wales or Scotland I can't vote for 2 of the 7. One must assume it wasn't even broadcast in Northern Ireland because out of the 7 only the Tories (who never win anyway) and UKIP contest seats there. They must have had their own version....or watched it screaming "hellooooooo, we are still here!"

[crazyhorse 37]

The most alarming political threat comes not from the orthodox doctirnes of neoliberalism, perverted and cynical as they are, but from the far right reaction to the destructions wrought by neoliberal policies across the so-called Western democracies. People feel in their guts that something is wrong, but often have no analysis to help them identify where the fault lies. And so we have witnessed the embarrasment of Greece on behalf of the German Bundesbank, the vilification of desperate migrants on the shores of the Mediteranean, the disintegration of Europe that is now under way, and the election of the ridiculous Donald Trump, installed with the votes of the so-called flyover-states, the working poor who stand to lose the most from Trump's unrestrained and irrational quasi-republicanism. And here in the Britain UKIP and their lying tory partners succeeded in fooling their benighted core voters in Sunderland, devastating their last economic hopes.

 

The real danger that the vicious excesses of neoliberalism have generated is from the far-right populist appeal. Do we want this force to triumph, or should we seek a more inclusive, egalitarian form of domestic politics and a more responsive and restrained foreign policy?

 

With all due respect, the "far right" are not driving anything...the reaction is an entirely natural human emotion.

"Far right" is a term much overused by the currently hysterical Left.

When I hear far right I think of a totalitarian society, where conformity is enforced by the power of the state. This is not what is happening in Europe or the USA today. Your automatic identification of UKIP and the Tories as far right is crazy. The far right will never obtain a foothold in Britain, because the past is seared into everyone's memory. In the darkest days of the last war, when Britain interred anyone suspected of being a danger to the state, it's core democratic values still endured. Even a country such as France with a history of active support for a puppet regime cannot today muster much support for a supposedly "far right" party.

 

What we are seeing today is not far right...it is the rallying of societies under pressure around their core values (be that religion, geographic area, shared history, language or culture). Humans are tribal animals and people all over the world are standing up for their little patch of the world and feeling increasingly uneasy with the ideology of the globalists. Don't get me wrong, there are benefits with globalisation (for me included) and I greatly admire global efforts to solve important problems together...but the reality is that Italians want to stay Italian, French want to stay French, Indonesians want to stay Indonesian and the British want to stay British.

There is nothing wrong with this. It doesn't make people inward looking or xenophobic...it is all about diversity (but not perhaps from your perspective)

[Staunton 18]

During the Vote Leave campaign, Boris Johnson deftly exploited the unfocused discontent of ordinary people. This discontent had arisen in the wake of the neoliberals' ideologically driven destruction of community values and essential services over the last thirty or more years (and I include New Labour in that neoliberal process), and was skilfully manipulated to trigger a response entirely contrary to the interests it pretended to serve. Ordinary people in Sunderland and Boston, just like most of us here in Sheffield, are dependent on the NHS. Johnson knew NHS funding cuts had caused anxieties, so he had the issue painted in big letters on the side of his bus: 'We send the EU £350 million per week - let's fund our NHS instead, Vote Leave'.

 

But it was a lie, cynically presented to play to that unfocused rage. And it worked. Similarly, the tories are not going to put an end to the migration that brexiteers so dislike, or 'look after our own' before funding aid. These are slights of hand from the masters of spin and ideological distortion.

 

The right wing of the tory party are jubilant at the success of their sleight of hand. They cannot quite believe their luck.

 

We can now see, too late, that those promises were all empty. Unless we understand these processes and stand up against them we cannot hope to structure a national policy that works for us all rather than the few, or a responsible and measured foreign policy.

 

p.s.crazyhorse is correct to challenge my use of the term 'far right' in this British context, I am allowing my European perspective to infiltrate my domestic concerns. The far right here at home are, and will hopefully remain, a negligible aspect of the political spectrum.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Staunton
p.s. added.

[crazyhorse 37]

During the Vote Leave campaign, Boris Johnson deftly exploited the unfocused discontent of ordinary people. This discontent had arisen in the wake of the neoliberals' ideologically driven destruction of community values and essential services over the last thirty or more years (and I include New Labour in that neoliberal process), and was skilfully manipulated to trigger a response entirely contrary to the interests it pretended to serve. Ordinary people in Sunderland and Boston, just like most of us here in Sheffield, are dependent on the NHS. Johnson knew NHS funding cuts had caused anxieties, so he had the issue painted in big letters on the side of his bus: 'We send the EU £350 million per week - let's fund our NHS instead, Vote Leave'.

 

But it was a lie, cynically presented to play to that unfocused rage. And it worked. Similarly, the tories are not going to put an end to the migration that brexiteers so dislike, or 'look after our own' before funding aid. These are slights of hand from the masters of spin and ideological distortion.

 

The right wing of the tory party are jubilant at the success of their sleight of hand. They cannot quite believe their luck.

 

We can now see, too late, that those promises were all empty. Unless we understand these processes and stand up against them we cannot hope to structure a national policy that works for us all rather than the few, or a responsible and measured foreign policy.

 

I am dependent on the NHS, along with my family (for both work and services)...but I also have worked with the NHS as a (private sector) supplier (of IT integration) for 18 years and can see that the organisation has many problems that need a culture change rather than an injection of cash...I will defend it's core values as strongly as any other...but I am not ideologically opposed to linking it to social care for Child Protection reasons, even if that means using private companies to do so.

 

You mention the destruction of community spirit over the last 30 years and having spent a year working with the small Mental Health clinics scattered around Barnsley, I understand the effect of weakening that...

But again, things change, no work lasts forever (my dad's lasted 37 years and mine will not reach that age, as it is now being outsourced to India to make more money for our private equity masters). Community spirit cannot be delivered by politicians from above, it takes work from below. In my street for example on the 18th June we are holding another street party (our 5th so far) and trying to do our bit to generate some solidarity.

 

Also the Tories may have convinced me they will do a better job in the next 5 years than the poor alternatives, but my current loyalty is not assured for ever.

They may applaud the success of their grand plan, but they like the rest haven't quite grasped that at some point their model will run into the buffers...after all unlimited growth on a finite planet cannot be overcome.

 

---------- Post added 05-06-2017 at 16:57 ----------

 

I would also like to say, that I believe all ideologies have a shelf life...they are born (usually imposed from the top), evolve, but sooner or later they run up against an immovable object and splinter...

That brick wall could be the human spirit, scientific enlightenment, a natural environmental limit, an opposing ideology etc

All ideologies (those you may perceive as good or those you perceive as bad) face the same obstacles.

In the West, Christian Fundamentalism has run it's course, tamed by the Enlightenment...a plus I reckon.

However, Solidarity has been replaced by Individualism and Materialism...a minus, which will soon collide with ultimate limits imposed by the world we live in...a disaster.

 

Political Islam is another ideology on the way out, to be replaced by Materialism and to merge with our path onwards to the environmental brick wall.

Don't believe me?

Go to Sumatra, go to Malaysia, go to Morocco...everyone wants the lifestyle they see you living in the West and the trinkets that go with it, the only people who don't are the fanatics...who cling ever tighter to their Gods.

[Staunton 18]

I would by no means wish to dispute that the NHS has its problems (not least the slow installation of neoliberal market policy over the last 37 years), and I would wholeheartedly acknowledge the need for structural reform and a radical change in culture, as crazyhorse suggests. Indeed, I would go further than crazyhorse on the question of integrating the NHS with social care, insisting that this link should be sensitively but irrevocably established.

 

However, I am clear that there is no room for contractors in the public services. Profit led private enterprise leads to swift erosion of standards, wage depression, diluted or externalised staff training, exploitation of front-line personnel, use of zero-hour contracts to offload all flexibility onto that front-line and, an essential point, an entire lack of accountability since an essential component of the neoliberal agenda is 'deregulation'. All this and the real issue - the diversion of public money into the pockets and purses of shareholders and executives.

 

And again, crazyhorse is correct to state that community spirit cannot be delivered from on high by politicians. But it most certainly can be, and has been, eroded by the same (though it is important to recognise that digital technology is also a significant factor of this erosion – a genie that will not go back into its bottle), and both the tories and New Labour have been guilty parties in this cynical process.

 

My question is this – where is the critical analysis of these issues? In the Sun? Never, the Daily Mail? Hardly! The BBC? The Guardian? They may make the odd gesture in the right direction in some of their arts/media/culture slots, but rarely shall we be given any hint on the news broadcasts or the front page. Ideologies, like diesel particulates, are an invisible but toxic presence, and it takes a great deal of sensitivity and vigilance to detect and resist their poison. Most people are too exhausted and too distracted to notice this subtle but pervasive influence. That is more than just a shame, it is a real and present danger, and journalists are guilty of a dereliction of duty for their failure to expose, highlight and explain political ideology to us in all its sinister guises. Sadly, disgustingly, they prefer to glory in its use and to magnify its malign influence.

[swarfendor437 14]

Nothing has changed since the 80's really!

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11673160&postcount=57

[Shogun 10]

Facebook has been hijacked by Tories sympathisers ,there are some real nasty things being said about Mr corbyn....quite counterproductive by the looks of the recent polls.

[Cyclone 10]

So I'm not evil now. But what do people need to do to be a 4 or maybe a 7?

No, just not very clever, throwing your vote away for no point.

 

My vote isn't pointless, it's not irrational. It's voting for what I believe is right. How many voted for ukip - how many seats did they win. We're leaving the eu now despite all three parties clearly saying they wanted us to stay in.

If you believe in the green party, then vote against the conservative party, the progressive alliance isn't difficult to understand.

 

---------- Post added 05-06-2017 at 21:11 ----------

 

With all due respect, the "far right" are not driving anything...the reaction is an entirely natural human emotion.

If emotion is governed by ignorance and fear and entirely decoupled from empathy and rational thought, then yes, entirely natural.

 

---------- Post added 05-06-2017 at 21:16 ----------

 

Facebook has been hijacked by Tories sympathisers ,there are some real nasty things being said about Mr corbyn....quite counterproductive by the looks of the recent polls.

 

I think that it entirely depends on who you know. If my facebook wall were representative then we wouldn't have voted for Brexit and the conservatives would hardly get a single vote.

[tinfoilhat 11]

No, just not very clever, throwing your vote away for no point.

If you believe in the green party, then vote against the conservative party, the progressive alliance isn't difficult to understand.

 

---------- Post added 05-06-2017 at 21:11 ----------

 

If emotion is governed by ignorance and fear and entirely decoupled from empathy and rational thought, then yes, entirely natural.

 

---------- Post added 05-06-2017 at 21:16 ----------

 

 

I think that it entirely depends on who you know. If my facebook wall were representative then we wouldn't have voted for Brexit and the conservatives would hardly get a single vote.

 

So I'm not evil any more, that's a climb down I suppose. If I vote labour and they get a majority (stranger things have happened) will corbyn off the lib dems or greens a seat at the top table? No he won't. I'd have voted for a labour government and the various things I don't want to happen.

 

If labour want my vote they should have put together a team and manefesto I want to vote for. Given years of austerity we've had and calamity may in charge it's a <removed> miracle labour aren't heading for a majority. Point fingers at someone else, namely the Labour Party.

Edited June 7, 2017 by nikki-red
masked swearing

[Cyclone 10]

I was being too harsh, unless you actively want the tories to win, then you're back to evil at a 5 on the scale.

 

Your own party have been telling it's voters to vote tactically, if you won't listen to them, then you deserve the conservative government you're contributing towards.