Politics Thread!

[tufty]

I think part of the problem is that people of my age are the last generation to know someone who was involved in the war. My grandfather was 16 when he lied about his age to join up and go to fight in France, and was evacuated out with shrapnel in his leg the day before the first offensive of Verdun.

It still means something to me. Not so much to my kids.

[F-ZeroOne]

Theres an infamous British chant "Two World Wars and One World Cup!", which as crass as it is probably sums up a lot of the general attitude - we "won", and thats as far many people generally think of it.

However, we oldies do tend to underestimate the youth... ies... and its worth pointing out that things like the Tank Museum video channel get millions of views and they collaborate with "World of Tanks"; that and "War Thunder" have sparked a real interest in at least the World War II period of history, along with things like "Girls und Panzer" - now, one can definitely point out that latter one has some, er, issues but the impact of a popular culture work on gaining a new audience in a subject shouldn't be underestimated; after all it was the LucasArts computer game "Their Finest Hour" that sparked my interest in that period of history, in large part due to its detailed manual which provided background to the gameplay. (as it turned out a lot of that background was, if not exactly wrong, than prone to repeating some well known myths).

[KlaxonCow]

Complaining that the youth don't know that their born is a pastime with an ancient pedigree:

What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

It's not really getting worse.

There's just always this inter-generational gap throughout history, where the youth explore the world and search for new things, while the oldies are getting stuck in their ways and refuse to accept that things (often rightly) move on, and maybe the shit they believed was actually complete bollocks all along.

The statistics show that today's kids actually drink less, take less drugs, engage in less criminal behaviour, are much less racist and discriminatory, and are thoroughly better behaved, overall, than we ever were.

They're actually depressingly boring. Which is likely why the pop charts are utter shit these days.

Indeed, that's a general thing that people forever complain that people are getting worse - and if they're of a fatalistic religious bent, this is a sign of "the End Times", no doubt, as well - but the statistics actually show that things have been gradually improving for centuries, in fact. A gradual rise in the standard of living.

Don't get me wrong. Shit is terrible. But relatively so. Our version of "shit" is a higher standard than it used to be.

Like, in the past, people walked around wearing swords on their belts all the time, because violence and murder was everywhere constantly. Whereas, we complain that everything's going to hell, because our wifi's a bit slow (#FirstWorldProblems).

And don't get me wrong, as our wifi should be better - but compared to 1 in 3 children never making it to the age of 5 (rising to 1 in 2 for inner city slums, which were genuine shit holes, not just a bad landlord who hasn't fixed the radiators yet), as recently as the Victorian era, there are also some things to be grateful for, you know?

The other thing is that it's hard to judge sometimes. You see the kids playing their Minecraft and seemingly not giving a shit about the ills of the world. It's easy to cast judgement that they're all just vacuous consumerist parasites.

But then they go on "school strikes" and campaign for the environment, or anti-war marches, or trans rights advocacy. Oh, they do give a shit and they are political animals - they just don't see things through the Marxist left / right lens that the rest of us were taught to see things through. They just have different "battle lines" to us.

And maybe, to some extent, they're right. In that "first past the post" representative democracy is depressingly mostly pointless, isn't it? It's hard to say someone's actually wrong, if they pay no attention to that bollocks. Because it is - and has always been - a load of bollocks all along.

There's always been this sense that things are getting worse - and if you're religious, then it's a sign of "the End Times" being just around the corner - but the predicted "end of the world", made again and again, never actually happens.



(Granted, though, a prediction of the end of the world is one of those things that'll always be wrong... until it isn't. But, at the same time, when it does end, then we're all dead, so it actually doesn't matter and it's not worth getting too upset about it.)

[KlaxonCow]

By the way, just getting my "told you so" in, as I did say ages back that Braverman was an evil racist Islamophobe.

And she's no friend of Israel whatsoever. It's a convenience to attack the Muslims first, that's all.



Just as, you know, we saw far right groups - actual neo-Nazi groups, egged on by Braverman's dog whistling rhetoric - also pretending to be "friends of Israel", for the convenience of being able to attack pro-Palestinian peace protesters. Neo-Nazis groups pretending to be "friends of Israel". Yeah, right.

And Rishi's an idiot. Because if she's allowed to stay in post, then she'll just get worse, having gotten away with murder with zero consequences.

She's not just your standard "slightly racist" Tory. It runs much deeper than that, unfortunately.

[Dio]

And the solution: demonstrate just how shallow the talent pool of your MPs is by having to boot Cameron into the Lords to find a competent Foreign Secretary?!?

[Orava]

Suealla the cruel sacked

[snaff]

By the way, just getting my "told you so" in, as I did say ages back that Braverman was an evil racist Islamophobe.

And she's no friend of Israel whatsoever. It's a convenience to attack the Muslims first, that's all.

Just as, you know, we saw far right groups - actual neo-Nazi groups, egged on by Braverman's dog whistling rhetoric - also pretending to be "friends of Israel", for the convenience of being able to attack pro-Palestinian peace protesters. Neo-Nazis groups pretending to be "friends of Israel". Yeah, right.

And Rishi's an idiot. Because if she's allowed to stay in post, then she'll just get worse, having gotten away with murder with zero consequences.

She's not just your standard "slightly racist" Tory. It runs much deeper than that, unfortunately.

They've done the job of getting the Israeli bombings out of the news and into the background hum.

Mossad asset Tommy Robinson was wheeled out to help.

Routine psy op.

[tufty]

Suealla the cruel sacked

And that's your next leader of the conservative party, right there.

[edit] Not Orava, obvs.

[Orava]

Meanehile locally there seems to an orchestrated campaign against speed cameras a strike for freedom or vandalism

[venusian]

A strike for the unjustifiably confident who believe they are exceptional and it's only Other People who need to be subject to petty rules. This misapprehension they call "common sense".

[Harlequin]

So why there's still a mayority that someway keeps voting tories ?

The last Prime Minister whose party won a General Election was Boris Johnson, who may have seemed like fun even to some people who did not vote to leave the EU. Since then, none of our PMs has been elected by the general public and the current one did not even win the vote among his own party members.

[gilesgoat]

So why there's still a mayority that someway keeps voting tories ?

The last Prime Minister whose party won a General Election was Boris Johnson, who may have seemed like fun even to some people who did not vote to leave the EU. Since then, none of our PMs has been elected by the general public and the current one did not even win the vote among his own party members.

Ok that's understandable and YET when there IS time to vote someway they still manage to win for a certain mayority .. how's that ?

Some people ( in the mayority ) still seems to keep voting tories !

[WiteWulf]

We don't vote in prime ministers in the UK, never have done. Nor do we vote in ministerial and cabinet positions.

We vote for a party, their politics and their manifesto. The party leader then forms a government from (usually, for the most part) elected MPs. Right or wrong, that's just the way our government works, and I wish more people understood that.

For what it's worth, I prefer this system to what we see in the States where, when Trump was in the White House, you see a populist leader, disliked by a lot of their party and with no majority in the place where laws are made. The flip side, though, is that you may see a party voted in with one leader, who is then overthrown by internal politics and replaced with someone with different slightly views/values/agendas. We have, of course, seen that happen in the UK.

But I do get fed up of people constantly banging on about how we didn't vote for this PM or the other.

[WiteWulf]

Ok that's understandable and YET when there IS time to vote someway they still manage to win for a certain mayority .. how's that ?

Some people ( in the mayority ) still seems to keep voting tories !

That's because the bigger problem this country faces is the First Pass The Post voting system, as opposed to Proportional Representation (or similar models).

The majority isn't represented in General Elections.

[Harlequin]

The last Prime Minister whose party won a General Election was Boris Johnson, who may have seemed like fun even to some people who did not vote to leave the EU. Since then, none of our PMs has been elected by the general public and the current one did not even win the vote among his own party members.

We don't vote in prime ministers in the UK, never have done. Nor do we vote in ministerial and cabinet positions.
…
But I do get fed up of people constantly banging on about how we didn't vote for this PM or the other.

Good point. I did attempt to bear that in mind with my first sentence but severely slipped up in the second.

That written, unfortunately, for many people party leaders do seem to sway their votes as much as, or even more than, the parties they command (hence, one might say, why Jeremy Corbyn was portrayed as a liability for the Labour Party). Similarly, I am often unsure during elections whether I am supposed to be voting for constituency representatives or for the parties whose logos are on their leaflets.