Voters

[Waterfall]

Julie I honestly don't understand what the fuck you're on about, no personal offence meant. I'm not being rude but I have friends who work in animal laboratory environments. All of them are very conscious of the ethical implications, all of them are very concerned with animal rights, lots of vegetarians, but they are al certain that animal testing is necessary to the development of new medicines and treatments for various nasty disorders and diseases.

 

[BigG]

Testing things like cosmetics on animals is obviously wrong but when it comes to something like a life saving ebola vaccine that isn't quite perfected yet and may go wrong and kill the patient.......I'd rather have that tested out on a rat before they give it to some poor human being in Africa any day. I'm all for animal rights but at the end of the day I'm a human so human rights take priority (for me anyway other people may feel differently IDK)

 

[felix]

Great post, Vurtual.

The people who died to get the small degree of suffrage we have got would still be fighting if they were around today - oligarchy is not democracy - the bits of democracy we have got were largely given to us to stave off more substantial change, and were tweaked to be as little change to elite power as possible.

True. There were a lot of nervous posh twats watching events in Russia with a lot of concern, while sending millions of men to Europe to war. They had to throw us a few crumbs to keep us grateful & docile.

What we need in this country is to push our system to a more grass roots people's democracy - this doesn't necessarily mean a violent revolution just a change in how people think about politics: this actually happened in scotland to a degree in my opinion and there was no fighting.

"To a degree"??? :D We had a North Korean-style turnout of 84.59% at the referendum. The entire country was buzzing for months before and after, and I do believe it's had a permanent effect on Scotland's political awareness and involvement. I even joined the SNP myself, the week after it. I never thought I would ever join a political party...

Saying our current system of democracy (if it even is that) is the worst system apart from all the rest is just another version of TINA and i don't believe it for a second (but don't forget that churchill probably said that while we had a social democracy system, which was better than the neoliberalism of today). I'm all for democracy, but we shouldn't stop striving for it until it's worthy of the name (i'm a socialist and think that socialism without democracy can't be socialism).

I had to look up "TINA". That's definitely not what I meant when I invoked Churchill's words, it was just a reaction to someone who suggested doing fuck all as an alternative. Doing fuck all is exactly what the Establishment want from the electorate.

 

[Erikmen]

Never voted and probably never will. I refuse to prop up a system I have no faith in. The whole thing is a charade. Meaningless. Give me somebody worth voting for and I'll be first in line to do so but until then, none of them are worthy of my vote. Fuck 'em. They all fuck us.

(but if i did i'd vote green)

Ironically by not voting you are part of the selection process. No way out I guess.

 

[ColtDan]

Testing things like cosmetics on animals is obviously wrong but when it comes to something like a life saving ebola vaccine that isn't quite perfected yet and may go wrong and kill the patient.......I'd rather have that tested out on a rat before they give it to some poor human being in Africa any day. I'm all for animal rights but at the end of the day I'm a human so human rights take priority (for me anyway other people may feel differently IDK)

I'd rather have it tested on convicted pedophiles, etc. Fuck their human rights

 

[BigG]

Felix - Slightly off topic but still relevant (especially to our conversation last night)...have you ever read "Winston Churchill Finest Years" - By Max Hastings?.....

Best book I've ever read on the man. I wonder what old Churchy would make of today's political scene if he were still around. He'd probably take one look at Russia and say "yeah nothings changed there then!" lol!

I'd rather have it tested on convicted pedophiles, etc. Fuck their human rights

haha!! I agree in fact I'm all for digging Jimmy Saville up...hanging the bastard then burying him again (which incidentally is exactly what Charles II did to Oliver Cromwell)

 

[felix]

Haven't read that one (yet), but I've read the War Diaries of Field Marshal Brooke, which gave a great insight into him. He was a cunt, but he was our cunt precisely when we needed him.

I suspect Churchill would be horrified by how uppity lots of us are nowadays, and especially by the influence of social media on politicians. He wouldn't really fit it very well nowadays... :D

 

[BigG]

I don't think he fit in very well back then either lol!

I just wonder what he'd make of things like the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Russian etc. etc.

It is of course impossible to even imagine as the world has changed so dramatically since the 40's and early 50's, I mean Churchill was dead against us giving back India so I can't imagine him being a campaigner for human rights in 3rd world countries somehow....times changes and ethics move on (thank god!)

Yes I've read Sir Alan Brooks book too....preferred Hastings book though

 

[Vurtual]

While on churchill have you read Churchill's Secret War by Madhusree Mukerjee? All about the bengali famine and churchill's part in it - estimates that between 3 and 6 million died in this famine during the war at least partly because of decisions made by churchill (quote: " india: a beastly people with a beastly religion", and on reports of how the famine was going: "has ghandi died yet?") - and it was the latest in a pretty long line of england-caused famines by some accounts (what does max hastings say about it?) .

Useful as some counter-balance to the usual hagiography. I'm not up on history enough to judge how fair it is as a book, but it seemed pretty good to me (i'm undoubtedly biased) - that's the difficulty with reading history: you have to trust the person doing the interpretation for you (like i'd have trouble with max hastings because his politics)

 

[pinkpapaver]

I will be spoiling my ballot paper. Voting encourages them. I give no one authority to rule over me. see, if everyone either spoilt their papers or didn't turn up at all they would have no power really. How much can we have a say in? the media will only tell us what the politicians want to be told. Consultations are not really consultations, much of the time minds have already been made up. So many acts and legislation just goes thru without a whisper. For example, academy schools. The teaching unions had managed to establish teachers pay and conditions that schools in local authority control had to adhere to, academies come along and don't have to adhere to these things. I keep my eyes and ears open and don't remember being consulted on whether I wanted schools to go from la control to academies.

Labour/ conservative two sides of the same coin. all my life I wanted a labour government. Then we got one and they did bad stuff. all false opposition and the politicians are just puppets. Is it the civil servants or the shadow people that run things.

Sorry, but I see democracy as an illusion of choice and having a say.

 

[Vurtual]

PP - Democracy should work though, and did work in the past to a greater degree (post war social democracy) - but we got too democratic for the elite (full employment suits us, but profits for them dwindle) so they had to reduce the state which was starting to work for the people too much (though still hardly at all). The labour party of today is not the same party as the post war one - this didn't happen by accident - there was a long term effort on the part of the elite of britain and america to coopt the labour movement of the whole of europe and push it in an atlanticist direction - the end result was new labour (and the 'gateskillites' before them) and the mainstream left parties of europe - i've linked it many times, but Robin Ramsay's essays - The Rise of New Labour and The Clandestine Caucus tell the story in detail; also anything about Operation Mockingbird in europe and Operation Gladio are important background to how democratic we are. (when you read these stories it's hard to conclude we have democracy when these monied interests can scuplt our political landscape so much).

 

[ScotchMist]

I hope those convictions are water tight?? Fuckin el Dan....

 

[felix]

if everyone either spoilt their papers or didn't turn up at all they would have no power really.

Well, "everyone" doing so is never gonna happen, is it? So doing either of those things actually has the opposite effect from what you're saying. All you'd achieve is a wasted trip to a polling station, and perhaps enjoy a minuscule frisson of excitement when they read out the quantity of spoiled papers, knowing that one of them was yours. Big woop. That'll surely change the world.

Consultations are not really consultations, much of the time minds have already been made up.

I wonder how closely you read the local papers or scan your local authority website for upcoming consultations, and how often you go along to any of them. I'm gonna take a wild guess that the total is close to zero times.

Always easier to sit back, do fuck all, and complain, though.

 

[pinkpapaver]

I do keep my ears and eyes open as best I can. Sad thing is is many of the people are busy working to keep food on plates and roofs over their heads (and drugs in their brain) I just see it as very all sewn up.

why will it never happen that everyone spoils their papers?

I see UKIP gaining many votes and some mps this time round.

 

[Waterfall]

Well I'm glad EADDers seem clued up to the fact that Churchill was a total cunt, and the fact that he's held up as a national treasure just exposes what a power-crazed imperial hangover of a country modern Britain is.

Regarding not voting, I can completely understand people's frustration with the universe, but as englandgz74 mentioned, by not voting you also play into the system. My own personal adage is that the only thing more pointless than voting is not voting. I've spoilt my ballot paper before, but I later found out that your ballot gets thrown out and not counted at all in any official statistics if you do that . No way out, Greens it is, or Labour if their (the Greens') animal rights policy turns out to be mental.

 

[Erikmen]

Well I'm glad EADDers seem clued up to the fact that Churchill was a total cunt, and the fact that he's held up as a national treasure just exposes what a power-crazed imperial hangover of a country modern Britain is.

Regarding not voting, I can completely understand people's frustration with the universe, but as englandgz74 mentioned, by not voting you also play into the system. My own personal adage is that the only thing more pointless than voting is not voting. I've spoilt my ballot paper before, but I later found out that your ballot gets thrown out and not counted at all in any official statistics if you do that . No way out, Greens it is, or Labour if their (the Greens') animal rights policy turns out to be mental.

Perfectly stated!

 

[Droppersneck]

Do you guys have a party that is for limiting the growth of government there? We have one in the US but it is not one of the two parties that matter. I used to be an anti green person, but I see that our environment is all that we have I just wish it didnt mean extending the reach of those in power tbh

 

[Waterfall]

Do you guys have a party that is for limiting the growth of government there? We have one in the US but it is not one of the two parties that matter. I used to be an anti green person, but I see that our environment is all that we have I just wish it didnt mean extending the reach of those in power tbh

Our constitutional and cultural differences mean that we don't really have an overtly "libertarian" party this side of the pond (although a large faction of the mainstream Conservatives would like to see the state smashed). Also, regarding the Green Party, I can't speak for everyone here but I think they derive a lot of their support not from overtly environmental issues, but from their social and economic policies. Basically they're way to the left of the mainstream Labour Party, who are basically Tories in red ties. Well, they're a tiny bit better. Really I just wanted to clear up any Green-support related confusion .

 

[BigG]

, but as englandgz74 mentioned, by not voting you also play into the system..

Did I say that? I don't remember saying it. I'm sure it was someone else,

Also while Churchill was indeed an imperialist and racist, without his leadership we probably would have lost the war so he served his purpose at the time. Just saying "he's a cunt" is a bit too much of a generalisation as it suggests he had zero good points and benefits to the nation at all.

 

[Vurtual]

I think there's scant possibility of change through the traditional 'democratic' channels (starting a party, standing for election) - our system is corrupt from the heart. People waffle about being the mother of parliaments (iceland is actually) and how we're so uncorrupted - but that's just because we built our corruption into the system when it was cobbled together centuries ago, so it's just harder to see it as it's just the way we've always done things. A large part of this is through the 'permanent government' of the civil service and the secret services/military etc, controlled largely by members of a certain class - with this undemocratic core that shepherds our system along paths that suit the elite, we can't have democracy.

The only hope is through movements that build new democratic ways of representing people outside or alongside the existing structures. Podemos have started with that: they're based on assemblies (growing out of the indignados movement) and have a completely crowd-funded and democratic way of doing things; they also do bigger 'assemblies' using reddit where anyone can get involved - they refuse to have anything directly to do with the existing political/media establishment (who they call 'the caste'). A sign that they're going in the proper direction is that the main media of spain are currently engaged in a massive smear campaign against their leadder Pablo Iglesias. Whether this sort of anarchist influenced politics can get very far in britain is another thing (spain have history of anarcho-syndicalist ideas)

Like i said, i'd be all for voting if there was something to vote for but there really isn't at the moment (getting one mp doesn't really count) - i refuse to believe that's because the majority have really made a considered decision to support neoliberalism (most people don't know what it is, let alone that all four parties support it). As shown in that 'voteforpolicies.org' most people support social democracy of the green party when just asked about policies. It seems our current democracy can only deliver certain economic policies that are pre-approved by powerful elite people - anything outside this gets ignored or given the tony benn/michael foot treatment in the media. Given all that spoiling the ballot is as good as anything imo.

Edit - as for the american libertarian party, i get the feeling that they're a trojan horse for some very nasty capitalists (like the kochs) who would do the same as the current system only more so. Much as i distrust government and the state, in the current world, they're often the only means we have of defending ourselves from the vagaries of financial elites (which is why they try their best to control them, or support politics that wants to reduce their size) - imo we need to get more democratic control of the government so we can use it for ourselves to make stuff fairer before we think about dismantling it (in other words to misquote ghandi - 'what do i think about western democracy? - it would be a good idea')