That is a bit like saying that Newton’s work should have been ignored till someone found a way of building quadruple expansion steam engines. You have to get from here to there, and to do so implies that someone starts to do something about it. Like Watt. Or Stevenson.
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“One step at a time” certainly has meaning. By traction I figure you mean actual political results. There’s no workable political program of implementation, so it will remain stalled.
By traction I mean pull. Political change comes either from push (Farage, Hitler) or pull (1945 Labour government). Pull can only develop if people re aware of possibilities for change, but how it takes place evolves.
Since Conservatives manage to mismanage the country quite happily without bothering about things like “workable political programs”, I fail to see your point. Politicians do things all the time without really understanding the consequences. Even in China where they tend to leave running the country to engineers and accountants.
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Good. I hate the thought of anyone missing out on their vote.
I just know that it’s only going to get worse from here, now that the Tories have added voter roll purges to their playbook.
In related news, I’ve voted today. I’m going to be travelling on polling day , so I applied for and have used a postal vote.
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From my point of view you and I are saying similar things. What I will add is that the incomprehensible cred the Tories gain for their economic shitshow is down to long term capture, by the idiot rich, of media.
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Corbyn is being criticized in the media this morning for saying that the War on Terror isn’t working, and that it’s too soon after Manchester.
Personally, as much as I dislike Corbyn and that wing of the Labour Party, I think he’s right to raise it and now is exactly the right time.
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I find it useful to remember that this is same media that greatly criticized the leader of one party for eating a bacon sandwich by hand, but not the other for eating a hot dog (bun) on a plate, with a knife and fork.
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(Annoying as all hell, but useful)
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As I said here, voting is too important to give a miss to.
Recounts and absentee ballots have resolved it into the first minority government in 65 years with the “don’t waste your vote” Greens holding the balance of power.
If you look at all the people trying to steal it from you, voting is an inherently rebellious act. If Brexit and the US show anything it’s that the bad guys win when people shut up and stay home.
I would never tell anyone which way to vote other than “educate yourself on the issues and candidates” (which you have clearly done) “then vote your conscience” but I will always stand and fight on the side of “cast the damn ballot”. When someone asks how the bastards won, don’t let the answer be “because I stayed home.”
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This.
If you don’t vote, what reason is there fora politician to take notice of you?
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I meant traction concerning public discourse; Piketty’s epic trove of data should be enough for anyone on the left to use to drag the Overton window back towards the centre (it’d be nice to think, and a bit more for good measure). Capital should be wielded like a club, battering the bullshit out of trickle-down fucks.
But who’s citing him? Has Russel Brand, at least? And come to think of it, I don’t recall Bernie ever busting out Piketty on the campaign… what gives?
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The media still won’t break with its owners, so Corbyn and Bernie invoke only limited but tested rhetoric.
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Don’t worry, I plan to.
There is no anarchist revolution about to happen, so the best thing I can do right now is to vote.
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Truth.
If we don’t vote, they’ve already proven that they’ll take ridiculous amounts of voter apathy and discontent as a “mandate” anyway, so there’s no reason not to throw as many sticks into their spokes as we can. That’s how I see it.
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That was just anti-Semitism, nothing to do with the modus operandi. If anti-Semitism doesn’t work reference the IRA. They have to be careful about Muslims because some Muslims vote Con and they don’t want to lose that vote, but as Miliband isn’t Orthodox - who vote Con - they could put the boot in because Orthodox don’t think he’s properly Jewish. Slimy is too polite. Lynton Crosby is the stuff slime merchants take out the back and incinerate because it’s too slimy to sell.
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I find it extremely easy to accept that that was racism and bigotry from them, as xenophobia (to varying degrees of subtlety and non-subtlety) have been a part of their output, for, well, decades.
They’ve done exactly the same tricks wrt Corbyn, too - appearance, clothing, not bowing far enough - and then, as you say, straight to the IRA.
[And even Dimbleby’s now saying there’s a bias, as a part of the BBC and presenter of one of their flagship political shows, when we’re this close to an election, when the BBC would be veeery careful around the subject - well.]
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Dimbleby has an election programme to talk up.
What I know about the Dimblebys causes me to regard him as merely Paul Dacre with an English accent.
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Still playing with fire given how a BBC reporter asking awkward questions last time, on the battle bus, was threatened with sanctions on the BBC by David Cameron in that ‘ho-ho, only joking (but not really)’ way that people in power over other people use to retain ‘deniability’.
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Wow.
Charges of election fraud brought the week before the general election.
I guess this is what the the next few news cycles are going to be about.
Strong and stable expenses.
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They were trying to keep Farage out of Parliament.
I think that was a mistake. With him in, people would see more clearly what a d**k he is, plus John Bercow would have the opportunity of telling him off, which would get people laughing at him.
The whole episode from 2010 to the present suggests that boys who go to boarding schools should never be given positions of power, because they never seem to grow up. Cameron, Osborne, Farage, Johnson. They’re still in the 5th form debaters club.
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