That's the wrong question, IMO. It's about working with the journalists and press, with all their flaws, to get what you want out there.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:41 pmHonest question - which bits of the UK media do you think would be open to fair and balanced coverage of a left-wing Labour leader?
My opinion: the levels of dishonesty that are apparent in most of the press suggest that an awful lot of controversy can and would be created out of nothing.
Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Also, re: the "Labour have a sh.t Brexit policy" meme - what is a non-sh.t Brexit policy? Brexit is unavoidably sh.t.
Half the people want to leave, half want to remain. Leaving will f.ck over most working people, the environment, the Union and the country's geopolitical standing - but remaining would be undemocratic.
Any course that is better for workers, the environment and the future of the UK and its constituent states means closer union with the EU. Any course that increasingly "takes back control" also increasingly turns the UK into a Dickensian workhouse run by oligarchs.
Brexit is a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.
Half the people want to leave, half want to remain. Leaving will f.ck over most working people, the environment, the Union and the country's geopolitical standing - but remaining would be undemocratic.
Any course that is better for workers, the environment and the future of the UK and its constituent states means closer union with the EU. Any course that increasingly "takes back control" also increasingly turns the UK into a Dickensian workhouse run by oligarchs.
Brexit is a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
So, like, trick them?dyqik wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:57 pmThat's the wrong question, IMO. It's about working with the journalists and press, with all their flaws, to get what you want out there.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:41 pmHonest question - which bits of the UK media do you think would be open to fair and balanced coverage of a left-wing Labour leader?
My opinion: the levels of dishonesty that are apparent in most of the press suggest that an awful lot of controversy can and would be created out of nothing.
Imagine, for the sake of argument, a purely hypothetical media environment in which the most widely read outlets were owned by a small number of right-wing billionaires, one Russian oligarch or a state outlet wedded to small-c conservatism and avoiding controversy at all costs. How would you get your message, unadulterated, into them, with sufficient force to overwhelm the contemporaneous deluge of misinformation?
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
In regards to the corporation tax thing, More or Less covered this recently. Britain has relatively low tax rates, but actually has a higher yield than France or Germany despite them having higher rates, because Britain taxes more of corporation spend than they do.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
That's interesting, thanks. I think I'll dig that out.El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:30 pmIn regards to the corporation tax thing, More or Less covered this recently. Britain has relatively low tax rates, but actually has a higher yield than France or Germany despite them having higher rates, because Britain taxes more of corporation spend than they do.
I wonder (thinking aloud, no opinion) which makes more sense in the modern globalised economy? In terms of economic justice, does it matter more if corporations are earning money or spending it? I think I instinctively lean towards taxing earnings and encouraging spending, but.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Ok, f.ck it. In for a penny.
After a decade of austerity, the UK has 320,000 homeless people, a third of them kids; 600k more children in poverty; rising food bank use; spiralling costs of living; a f.cked-up higher education system; a healthcare system at crisis point and on the brink of privatisation; f.cking Brexit; and a human rights record that the UN is reporting to Geneva.
Corbyn is leading amongst young (<40) and Black and Ethnic Minority voters, who are disproportionately affected by austerity. He seems to be losing chiefly amongst groups that are pretty comfortable. He scares the old by threatening to return to society to the level of generosity the old benefited from when they were young. He annoys the disinterested by making stark the values of the opposing forces in British society. People who treat politics like an interesting evening's game either get uncomfortable when you keep reminding them people are dying, or get annoyed if you don't look dazzling doing it.
Corbyn is as uncharismatic as f.ck. His leadership skills are evidently lacking. He's bollocks at public relations. His anally-retentive quest ideological puritanism sends him up so far up his own arse he cannot communicate with people who aren't already persuaded to his point of view. All of these things mean that he is a terrible party leader. Don't blame me - I didn't vote for him.
Nevertheless, the smug criticism of him here makes me uncomfortable, because so much of it is so incredibly superficial. Yeah, he looks like a distant uncle regretting the level of enthusiasm he's chosen for singing happy birthday, or a jovial teacher whose entire class has just left for Christmas without giving him a single card. Fine. The British public may well be such morons that they can't identify their own interests without a flashy showman to sugarcoat it for them. They might be such c.nts that they don't care about anybody else's living conditions without a slick salesperson showing them how they too would benefit. Perhaps, perhaps.
I would just really appreciate it if, from time to time, debates of Corbyn's failings could address why that's important in the grand scheme of things. Pretending to pontificate over whether Corbyn would really be better than Boris - for comedic effect, presumably - really isn't that clever. People are viciously voting to harm each other because they're needlessly afraid for the future, and the atmosphere has become so toxic that somebody presenting a positive vision is pilloried for daring to do so.
Watching you lot freak out over Corbyn's plans for the trains is like watching USians freak out over the idea of a national health service. He's really not suggesting much that is radical in comparison to other, more successful, European economies. So when discussing his policies, leaning heavily on lazy comparisons to Venezuela makes you all look a bit weird (though I think that was more at the old place). Get a grip.
If it helps, mentally substitute out Corbyn for Bernard Cribbins. I really warm to him when I do that.
After a decade of austerity, the UK has 320,000 homeless people, a third of them kids; 600k more children in poverty; rising food bank use; spiralling costs of living; a f.cked-up higher education system; a healthcare system at crisis point and on the brink of privatisation; f.cking Brexit; and a human rights record that the UN is reporting to Geneva.
Corbyn is leading amongst young (<40) and Black and Ethnic Minority voters, who are disproportionately affected by austerity. He seems to be losing chiefly amongst groups that are pretty comfortable. He scares the old by threatening to return to society to the level of generosity the old benefited from when they were young. He annoys the disinterested by making stark the values of the opposing forces in British society. People who treat politics like an interesting evening's game either get uncomfortable when you keep reminding them people are dying, or get annoyed if you don't look dazzling doing it.
Corbyn is as uncharismatic as f.ck. His leadership skills are evidently lacking. He's bollocks at public relations. His anally-retentive quest ideological puritanism sends him up so far up his own arse he cannot communicate with people who aren't already persuaded to his point of view. All of these things mean that he is a terrible party leader. Don't blame me - I didn't vote for him.
Nevertheless, the smug criticism of him here makes me uncomfortable, because so much of it is so incredibly superficial. Yeah, he looks like a distant uncle regretting the level of enthusiasm he's chosen for singing happy birthday, or a jovial teacher whose entire class has just left for Christmas without giving him a single card. Fine. The British public may well be such morons that they can't identify their own interests without a flashy showman to sugarcoat it for them. They might be such c.nts that they don't care about anybody else's living conditions without a slick salesperson showing them how they too would benefit. Perhaps, perhaps.
I would just really appreciate it if, from time to time, debates of Corbyn's failings could address why that's important in the grand scheme of things. Pretending to pontificate over whether Corbyn would really be better than Boris - for comedic effect, presumably - really isn't that clever. People are viciously voting to harm each other because they're needlessly afraid for the future, and the atmosphere has become so toxic that somebody presenting a positive vision is pilloried for daring to do so.
Watching you lot freak out over Corbyn's plans for the trains is like watching USians freak out over the idea of a national health service. He's really not suggesting much that is radical in comparison to other, more successful, European economies. So when discussing his policies, leaning heavily on lazy comparisons to Venezuela makes you all look a bit weird (though I think that was more at the old place). Get a grip.
If it helps, mentally substitute out Corbyn for Bernard Cribbins. I really warm to him when I do that.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
And yet Labour are clearly a Leave party, led by people who have been lexiters for decades, with FoM off the table. Their EU policy is pre-rejected unicorn-filled nonsense based on non-existent concepts of cherry picked versions of the CU and SM. Once that hits the reality of the EU27's resolve to protect the integrity of those instititions, Corbyn's hopeless excuse for a policy puts us right back where we are now. Even Barry Gardiner saw through that.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:58 pmAlso, re: the "Labour have a sh.t Brexit policy" meme - what is a non-sh.t Brexit policy? Brexit is unavoidably sh.t.
Half the people want to leave, half want to remain. Leaving will f.ck over most working people, the environment, the Union and the country's geopolitical standing - but remaining would be undemocratic.
Any course that is better for workers, the environment and the future of the UK and its constituent states means closer union with the EU. Any course that increasingly "takes back control" also increasingly turns the UK into a Dickensian workhouse run by oligarchs.
Brexit is a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.
And I have no faith that these committed lexiters would ever deliver on the promise of a referendum.
Just tell 'em I'm broke and don't come round here no more.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Really? Your last line is really the only place where we differ. I don't think either party's vision for an ideal Brexit was particularly doable, but I massively prefer Labour's vision. I do think a second ref on a specific final deal is the best way out of the immediate crisis. Personally I don't have much reason to doubt they'd go through with it. Especially given that the only plausible way they could get into control given the polling would be through some sort of bed-sharing with the Lib Dems.GeenDienst wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:03 pmAnd yet Labour are clearly a Leave party, led by people who have been lexiters for decades, with FoM off the table. Their EU policy is pre-rejected unicorn-filled nonsense based on non-existent concepts of cherry picked versions of the CU and SM. Once that hits the reality of the EU27's resolve to protect the integrity of those instititions, Corbyn's hopeless excuse for a policy puts us right back where we are now. Even Barry Gardiner saw through that.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:58 pmAlso, re: the "Labour have a sh.t Brexit policy" meme - what is a non-sh.t Brexit policy? Brexit is unavoidably sh.t.
Half the people want to leave, half want to remain. Leaving will f.ck over most working people, the environment, the Union and the country's geopolitical standing - but remaining would be undemocratic.
Any course that is better for workers, the environment and the future of the UK and its constituent states means closer union with the EU. Any course that increasingly "takes back control" also increasingly turns the UK into a Dickensian workhouse run by oligarchs.
Brexit is a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.
And I have no faith that these committed lexiters would ever deliver on the promise of a referendum.
Ignoring your last line, the second ref is a game-changer. But if you really don't trust them to deliver on that then I can see your point.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.
Re: After Corbyn
Judging by some of his actions, Saddam Hussein seemed to be trying to convince the rest of the world thatdyqik wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:13 pmDid they? You're going to need serious contemporary citations to show that.Bewildered wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:06 pmEveryone knew at the time that the claims were b.llsh.t, that is really not an excuse.
Note that dissenting voices is not enough to support this claim. You need to show that the generally accepted consensus of trustworthy institutions at the time of the Parliamentary votes was that the claims were b.llsh.t.
"Everybody knows" a whole lot of things that are false or easily disputable all the time.
a) He didn't currently have any WMDs (true)
and
b) He was working to get them (false)
For example - it seems really dim to me to build a Castor Oil plant and a pesticide factory on the site of the former chemical weapons plant in Fallujah if one wasn't trying to invite a preemptive strike.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Supposedly Saddam was more intent on flexing to his regional neighbours than worried about the threat of Western intervention.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
But a crap deal - still better than Johnson's eventual no-deal, would be voted on in a referendum, with Remain as an option. A referendum is the only way to supersede the 2016 result and start addressing its toxic legacy.plodder wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 4:50 pmIn some ways it would be. There would be genuine long-lasting damage to the economy if corporation tax was significantly raised and if £Bns were spent on botched nationalisations that ended up locking-in inefficiency.
The underlying problem is that there is a significant amount of "if we spend on things society needs we'll automatically get a payback, therefore it's money well spent" which doesn't take into account the inefficiencies associated with command-economy spending.
Labour's spending plans are enormously ambitious, accelerating at a crazy rate from a standing start, and I just can't see how they'll manage this process effectively.
The other thing is that Labour's Brexit deal would be sh.t, locking us in to some weird dependent relationship.
Johnson is dreadful in many ways, but so is Corbyn.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
But even then it was stupid.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:13 pmSupposedly Saddam was more intent on flexing to his regional neighbours than worried about the threat of Western intervention.
I can understand pretending to have WMDs as a deterrent.
I can understand having a secret WMD program and pretending not to for military advantage if needed.
But not having a secret program and acting as though one is preparing to acquire WMDs in the near future, but not now is inviting preemptive action by states that would be threatened by this.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
No, of course you don't try to trick them, that's guaranteed to backfire. It's a relationship with journalists. You have to build that, and give them framings and then stories in a way that moves the center, and emphasizes that you are working to make things work better in a way that's acceptable to the small-c conservatives. You have to make it easy for journalists to frame your announcements in a positive way, even if they are small-c conservatives.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:00 pmSo, like, trick them?dyqik wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:57 pmThat's the wrong question, IMO. It's about working with the journalists and press, with all their flaws, to get what you want out there.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:41 pm
Honest question - which bits of the UK media do you think would be open to fair and balanced coverage of a left-wing Labour leader?
My opinion: the levels of dishonesty that are apparent in most of the press suggest that an awful lot of controversy can and would be created out of nothing.
Imagine, for the sake of argument, a purely hypothetical media environment in which the most widely read outlets were owned by a small number of right-wing billionaires, one Russian oligarch or a state outlet wedded to small-c conservatism and avoiding controversy at all costs. How would you get your message, unadulterated, into them, with sufficient force to overwhelm the contemporaneous deluge of misinformation?
ETA: you can't win an election without winning the votes of some small-c conservatives. If your policies can't be presented in a way to appeal to them, get new policies. At least as an intermediate step.
Last edited by dyqik on Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:08 pmReally? Your last line is really the only place where we differ. I don't think either party's vision for an ideal Brexit was particularly doable, but I massively prefer Labour's vision. I do think a second ref on a specific final deal is the best way out of the immediate crisis. Personally I don't have much reason to doubt they'd go through with it. Especially given that the only plausible way they could get into control given the polling would be through some sort of bed-sharing with the Lib Dems.GeenDienst wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:03 pmAnd yet Labour are clearly a Leave party, led by people who have been lexiters for decades, with FoM off the table. Their EU policy is pre-rejected unicorn-filled nonsense based on non-existent concepts of cherry picked versions of the CU and SM. Once that hits the reality of the EU27's resolve to protect the integrity of those instititions, Corbyn's hopeless excuse for a policy puts us right back where we are now. Even Barry Gardiner saw through that.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 8:58 pmAlso, re: the "Labour have a sh.t Brexit policy" meme - what is a non-sh.t Brexit policy? Brexit is unavoidably sh.t.
Half the people want to leave, half want to remain. Leaving will f.ck over most working people, the environment, the Union and the country's geopolitical standing - but remaining would be undemocratic.
Any course that is better for workers, the environment and the future of the UK and its constituent states means closer union with the EU. Any course that increasingly "takes back control" also increasingly turns the UK into a Dickensian workhouse run by oligarchs.
Brexit is a strange game where the only winning move is not to play.
And I have no faith that these committed lexiters would ever deliver on the promise of a referendum.
Ignoring your last line, the second ref is a game-changer. But if you really don't trust them to deliver on that then I can see your point.
The second ref is indeed the game-changer. It's also vital.
I can't see how Corbyn could have anywhere near the political capital to renege on a second referendum with remain as an option - even if I thought he wanted to.
Especially in any hung Parliament
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
I find it, err, interesting that no one, so far, has addressed the page 48 thing. Doesn't anyone think that the Britannia Unchained crew actually mean it?
Time for a big fat one.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
And re the really long one, nothing here is "smug". Half the f.cking PLP believe that Corbyn is inherently unfit to be PM. The blackmail approach about o noes the austerity people isn't effective. Why can't you give us a leader we want to vote for?
You took the trouble to explain a number of the reasons (not all, and probably not the most important ones) why so many potential Labour voters have gone elsewhere. But you then fall into the trap of telling us at length why it is so obvious that people should vote Labour. The electorate seems to think otherwise, tbc in about 48 h.
Anecdote, brace position. ErSelf told me tonight about a colleague who was "in tears" about the imminent prospect of voting other than Labour, because of Corrbyn, and for the first time ever (she is 45). She'll be OK, it gets easier after that.
PS I'm on my trombone* and cannot, quote easily. I have gone into this on the other thread, or earlier here, but I don't believe for a second that this bunch of diehard lexiters will ever risk anything that could lead to retaining FoM. Evrything Corbyn has actually done to date confirms Labour as a Leave party, irrespective of the wishes of its members. And push to shove, Momentum support that.
Corbyn has only disciplined SC members who broke ranks to support remain flavoured amendments, those who did so to support leave ones faced no sanction. If the second ref ever came to a vote, Corbyn will have no problem dogwhistling enough "rebels" to kill it.
*Matt Berry.
You took the trouble to explain a number of the reasons (not all, and probably not the most important ones) why so many potential Labour voters have gone elsewhere. But you then fall into the trap of telling us at length why it is so obvious that people should vote Labour. The electorate seems to think otherwise, tbc in about 48 h.
Anecdote, brace position. ErSelf told me tonight about a colleague who was "in tears" about the imminent prospect of voting other than Labour, because of Corrbyn, and for the first time ever (she is 45). She'll be OK, it gets easier after that.
PS I'm on my trombone* and cannot, quote easily. I have gone into this on the other thread, or earlier here, but I don't believe for a second that this bunch of diehard lexiters will ever risk anything that could lead to retaining FoM. Evrything Corbyn has actually done to date confirms Labour as a Leave party, irrespective of the wishes of its members. And push to shove, Momentum support that.
Corbyn has only disciplined SC members who broke ranks to support remain flavoured amendments, those who did so to support leave ones faced no sanction. If the second ref ever came to a vote, Corbyn will have no problem dogwhistling enough "rebels" to kill it.
*Matt Berry.
Last edited by GeenDienst on Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Just tell 'em I'm broke and don't come round here no more.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
I would just like to point out that were Labour's spending plans implemented, it would bring government expenditure as a percentage of GDP up to the European average, to roughly the same level as Germany, and below the Nordics and France.
This is not crazy.
What is unprecedented is the increase in spending required to do this, which is usually forced on an economy during a war.
The increase in taxation of business proposed would make the UK one of the larger business taxers. The UK currently manages to get good revenues from business taxes by having a broad base, rather than a narrow base of businesses taxed highly.
The source for the above is the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less.
I think most (but not all) academic economists would agree that austerity has been bad for the UK economy, and a better approach would have been investing in public infrastructure while borrowing was cheap - things like HS2, other railway improvements, road improvements, putting a couple of extra runways at Gatwick, uprating the National Grid, fibre to everyone's doors.
Unfortunately, I think the Tories will 'win', and we can write off the UK for a generation or two, or even permanently - why? - because Scotland will look for a means to become independent, and Tory strategists will realise that they have nothing to lose by Scotland leaving with all its non-Tory voting constituencies, leading to comfortable majorities for the Tories in subsequent elections.
I'm not always this cheerful.
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
I'm working on the basis that they mean it.
And remember that if you botch the exit, the carnival of reaction may be coming to a town near you.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
So am I. It just doesn't have that much to do with Corbyn.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Apart from the need to win.
Just tell 'em I'm broke and don't come round here no more.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
It's only the context.
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Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
Oh no.
It's surprising that they put it in the manifesto.
Courts to be unable to constrain the government for political reasons - which is what Johnson complained about when challenged about proroguing Parliament. So there'd be nothing to stop him proroguing Parliament to the next election.
Meanwhile the Fixed Term Parliament Act to be repealed - taken with the above, would Johnson need to call an election within 5-years? Or is that *too* paranoid?
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation
Re: Is Jeremy Corbyn rubbish or not? - split from After Corbyn thread
It makes it easier to get through the Lords if its in a manifesto, the Sailisbury convention stops them opposing it if its in one. And the Lords have never seemed like a bunch who like constitutional change. (Not sure how that holds up for a minority Government, mind).
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Re: After Corbyn
I'm not trying to argue that any particular system that currently exists is better than Western democracies. I'm just pointing out that the actions of Western democracy are routinely evil. I don't know how to progress from here, but if progress is to come at all it must begin with citizens of the West understanding that their side is, mutatis mutandis, as depraved as the rest of them.dyqik wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2019 3:27 amI'm talking about the ideals of Western democracies. I know they are incredibly flawed in practice.
But what do you propose replacing Western democracies with? Presumeably not terrorist run states or states with a bunch of competing armed groups like the IRA that happily and deliberately target civilians as a matter of top level policy.
Re: After Corbyn
Do you really think that Western democracies are just as bad as Saudi Arabia, Russia or the ISIS Caliphate? Because that's an outright rejection of human rights, the idea of self-determination, and the possibility of progress.secret squirrel wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2019 4:02 amI'm not trying to argue that any particular system that currently exists is better than Western democracies. I'm just pointing out that the actions of Western democracy are routinely evil. I don't know how to progress from here, but if progress is to come at all it must begin with citizens of the West understanding that their side is, mutatis mutandis, as depraved as the rest of them.dyqik wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2019 3:27 amI'm talking about the ideals of Western democracies. I know they are incredibly flawed in practice.
But what do you propose replacing Western democracies with? Presumeably not terrorist run states or states with a bunch of competing armed groups like the IRA that happily and deliberately target civilians as a matter of top level policy.