The Politics Thread

[bw@bw]

The one's who want democracy and universal suffrage. At least 50% of the population might find that a good idea. Cuba showed how effective mobilising women can be.

It's not about a masterplan, it's more realising that Afghanistan is still an occupied country, and that sooner or later their people are going to get pretty pissed off with that, understandably so. The increase in support for the Taliban, preaching their 'look at what the bad Americans did to you' shows that time seems to be coming. Only one of two things can happen, in the long run. We get forced out, or we pull out. When that happens, it seems a good idea there be some organisation there as opposed to chaos, and an organised Taliban filling the void.

Ok, so once that 'realisation' has been reached, and we are settled on the fact that 'some organisation' is a good idea, you think a student socialist movement is well-placed to provide it, or even make a blind bit of difference?

I'm not knocking anyone's good intentions or admirable wishes, by the way, I'm just interested in the distinction between "bullshittery and principles" and "well thought out activism".

Reminds me of when my then left wing student daughter went to Poland on "work experience", and stayed with my cousin - a hard bitten female journo who had worked in Eastern Europe before the iron curtain fell.

On her return I asked how the visit had gone. "It was great Dad, except for the police everywhere - it felt so oppressive. The trouble with communist governments is that they don't understand socialism."

Or as my cousin put it "If you thought that was bad, you should have been in East Berlin in the the old days"

Idealism is such an attractive trait

[William the White]

What is amazing is that this has been a total non-issue in the conference season.

I know we're in the email age now, but surely this is still a crucial pillar of infrastructure?

Yes - in many ways - including the beloved rural post offices in the tory shires...

Christ, we're agreeing...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

they are now working longer and harder for less pay than before, many have been made redundant or accepted redundancy,

Is now really the time? I mean, the first half of what I have quoted is certainly true of my father and his small company, and the second half is true of a few of his (former) employees. A story not unfamiliar across the private sector.

I hope it's sorted out soon anyway... we can't afford this now, and it's a shame that's part of the calculation. As for Amazon and viable alternatives... it will certainly be interesting to wait and see.

Whether or the action is justified or not, and it won't surprise you to learn that I am generally hostile to collective action in the form of strikes, that doesn't affect my opinion that there will now be a serious and determined look at investing in options that don't carry a strike risk.

[superjohnmcginlay]

they are now working longer and harder for less pay than before, many have been made redundant or accepted redundancy,

Is now really the time? I mean, the first half of what I have quoted is certainly true of my father and his small company, and the second half is true of a few of his (former) employees. A story not unfamiliar across the private sector.

Very much so. The construction sector's had the shit kicked out of it recently.
Laing's - one of the largest construction firms in the country have just announced 1000 job cuts.
A lot of my friends are builders, drivers etc and over the last year are having to work for what they call shit prices if they can even get work. But they get on with it (it keeps them out of the pub!).
Ive taken a pay freeze this year and the final salary pension scheme's been fooked off (Nice one Gordon).
A friend whos a sales manager at a national material supplier has had to take a pay cut of 5% with senior managers taking a 10% cut.
Times arent good.

[Bruno]

Private Eye has been talking about just this sort of problem for years. Our media laws are an absolute joke, no wonder villains from across the world move to silent dissent in our courts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oc ... an-gagged- from-reporting-parliament

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

The Guardian has vowed urgently to go to court to overturn the gag on its reporting. The editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: "The media laws in this country increasingly place newspapers in a Kafkaesque world in which we cannot tell the public anything about information which is being suppressed, nor the proceedings which suppress it. It is doubly menacing when those restraints include the reporting of parliament itself."

The media lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC said Lord Denning ruled in the 1970s that "whatever comments are made in parliament" can be reported in newspapers without fear of contempt.

He said: "Four rebel MPs asked questions giving the identity of 'Colonel B', granted anonymity by a judge on grounds of 'national security'. The DPP threatened the press might be prosecuted for contempt, but most published."

The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority – up to the king – over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes's battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, "it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to".

[Lord Kangana]

We are subjects not citizens. I'm unsure of which constitution we actually have for it to be construed as unconstitutional. I'm unsurprised.

[Puskas]

We are subjects not citizens. I'm unsure of which constitution we actually have for it to be construed as unconstitutional. I'm unsurprised.

There's no written constitution, obviously, but an implied constitution can be drawn from previously passed laws/court cases.

This has disadvantages, but also advantages. For instance written constitutions can become outdated - see, for example, the right to bare arms (althouugh why anyone would be offended by folk in t-shirts and short-sleeved shirts has long mystified me).

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

[a1]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

[Puskas]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

Pandas are crap, and deserve to die out.

Animals that have evolved to be carnivorous, but exploited a weird ecological gap to eat bamboo - but, because they have primarily carnivorous digestive systems, need to eat loads of it to survive? Rubbish.

[Prufrock]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

Pandas are crap, and deserve to die out.

Animals that have evolved to be carnivorous, but exploited a weird ecological gap to eat bamboo - but, because they have primarily carnivorous digestive systems, need to eat loads of it to survive? Rubbish.

And refuse to have sex? What kind of gayers are they? Pfft. Plus, they think they're goths, but when have you ever seen a fat goth? Ok, aside from Robert Smith, when have you ever seen a fat goth?

[Hoboh]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

Pandas are crap, and deserve to die out.

Animals that have evolved to be carnivorous, but exploited a weird ecological gap to eat bamboo - but, because they have primarily carnivorous digestive systems, need to eat loads of it to survive? Rubbish.

And refuse to have sex? What kind of gayers are they? Pfft. Plus, they think they're goths, but when have you ever seen a fat goth? Ok, aside from Robert Smith, when have you ever seen a fat goth?

Some Goths are quite fit n sexy!!! Planet hobo allows people to be different.

[Puskas]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

Pandas are crap, and deserve to die out.

Animals that have evolved to be carnivorous, but exploited a weird ecological gap to eat bamboo - but, because they have primarily carnivorous digestive systems, need to eat loads of it to survive? Rubbish.

And refuse to have sex? What kind of gayers are they? Pfft. Plus, they think they're goths, but when have you ever seen a fat goth? Ok, aside from Robert Smith, when have you ever seen a fat goth?

You can find fat goths. I (briefly) shared a house with one, when I lived in Leeds - he was refered to by my mates as "The bloke who's too fat to be in The Damned".

Indeed, when I went to see the Sisters, earlier this year, Eldritch himself looked a tad chubby. To the extent that you could see him at all, through the dry ice and OTT lighting...

Goth women, too, can occasionally carry some pounds. Cf. HMHB's classic, "With Goth On Our Side": "My overweight girlfriend, she sits and she crimps. Her mother's convinced she's communing with imps".

Pandas, though - best summed up by Harry Hill as "Fat chinese badgers". 'Nuff said.

[superjohnmcginlay]

The right to arm bears should is something to worry about, though. They're dangerous enough, already. See the other thread.

pistols for pandas ?

Pandas are crap, and deserve to die out.

Animals that have evolved to be carnivorous, but exploited a weird ecological gap to eat bamboo - but, because they have primarily carnivorous digestive systems, need to eat loads of it to survive? Rubbish.

And refuse to have sex? What kind of gayers are they? Pfft. Plus, they think they're goths, but when have you ever seen a fat goth? Ok, aside from Robert Smith, when have you ever seen a fat goth?

You can find fat goths. I (briefly) shared a house with one, when I lived in Leeds - he was refered to by my mates as "The bloke who's too fat to be in The Damned".

Indeed, when I went to see the Sisters, earlier this year, Eldritch himself looked a tad chubby. To the extent that you could see him at all, through the dry ice and OTT lighting...

Goth women, too, can occasionally carry some pounds. Cf. HMHB's classic, "With Goth On Our Side": "My overweight girlfriend, she sits and she crimps. Her mother's convinced she's communing with imps".

Pandas, though - best summed up by Harry Hill as "Fat chinese badgers". 'Nuff said.

So does Peter Murphy.

[Bruno]

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Good article in The Times today about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time a week tomorrow.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 873433.ece

Hope the Conservatives field someone capable of giving him an (intellectual) kicking, because it's true that Griffin is now very well accustomed to dealing with clumsy opponents. The journalist is right to dismiss Pickles... his TV appearances have been dreadful since that QT appearance he made... shame really, he was once a thought of as being a very useful asset in representing the working class, northern side of the Conservatives. He comes across really weirdly now in this very odd softly-spoken manner, and refuses to answer a question with the worst of them.

[blurred]

I agree with their assertion that it has to be Hague. I think Straw's the wrong choice for Labour, but Hague is most definitely the right Tory to take him to task. Pickles should definitely be kept out of the limelight after his last foray onto QT.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

So, Wilders is in town.

Banner among the protests: "Islam will dominate the world"

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/669521/ ... lders.html

Are these guys paid actors employed by Nick Griffin?

[Prufrock]

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/669521/ ... lders.html

Are these guys paid actors employed by Nick Griffin?

Jebuuuuuuuus. There's some right feck* in there. My favourite guy is the one at the end. I quote him verbatim, "Where did all the freedom go? Where did the democracy go? Let him come outside, let the police go home...two minutes, and see how is faced with the er, the islamic er, the islamic view on all of this what he said". This view being clarified by himself and others before as capital punishment. Now I don't know what Wilders said, he might be just as crazy a bastard as they were, but they need a lesson on what 'freedom' and 'democracy' are if they thing it involves lynch mobs and beheadings. As Crayons implied, they do their cause far more harm than good, and give fuel to the far right. I also feel uneasy whenever I hear the extremist nutjob ones talking about 'Islam conquering Britain'. Religion, shit it.

[William the White]

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/669521/ ... lders.html

Are these guys paid actors employed by Nick Griffin?

Good recruiting fodder for him, that's for sure, especially given the propensity of the press and others to blow into significance the activities of what looked like significantly less than 100 islamic 'true believers' - most other moslems being at work, supporting their families, getting on with their neighbours, having a laugh, wondering and hoping about their children's futures, being the ordinary beings they actually are...

BTW - and I know this is not mummy's point - if you want savagery and punishments for blasphemy, torture, executions of unspeakable barbarity, repression, look at the old testament and pretty much 2000 years of christian practice...

and, in truth, most christians were just trying to look after themselves, their families and loved ones etc...

these are especially dangerous times when people are prepared to use zealots as reps of the majority... absurd, and indulged in with abandon by tabloid stirrers - none of which are likely to suffer the consequences of an increasingly hostile and divided society that they have promoted...