Which Left feels Right?

[Vamp]

I'm a "fuck this miserable country." 

[Chest Rockwell]

17 hours ago, neil said:

I have a crush on Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

Turns out it's Alexandria and not Alexandra. That may well just be an autocorrect on your part, but it's something I didn't realise until very recently.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Chest Rockwell

[The Gaffer]

I don't see the virtue in differentiating between left and right when both hands are extending from the same trans-dimensional shape shifting lizard.   

[The King Of Swing]

May as well post this in the lefty thread. 

Reddit users fuck over billion dollar hedge funds.

They don't like the free market now. 

[SuperBacon]

This is the 'far left' in this country?

This is bullshit.

 

[Chris B]

I've seen her getting a lot of stick for this - I'm not necessarily seeing what's so controversial about what she's saying. I'm not reading it as being about what she thinks should happen - just what she thinks will happen. What am I missing?

[Dead Mike]

6 hours ago, Chris B said:

I've seen her getting a lot of stick for this - I'm not necessarily seeing what's so controversial about what she's saying. I'm not reading it as being about what she thinks should happen - just what she thinks will happen. What am I missing?

You're missing nothing. It's just another shitty thing highlighting the gulf between what ideologues want/think should happen & actual reality. 

I'm sure you remember seeing angry old blokes who simply couldn't fathom why we couldn't just tell the EU to 'fuck off', keep all our market access & incur no costs? This is the same thing. People lashing out when reality collides with the fantasy they've convinced themselves is feasible.

[SuperBacon]

7 hours ago, Chris B said:

I've seen her getting a lot of stick for this - I'm not necessarily seeing what's so controversial about what she's saying. I'm not reading it as being about what she thinks should happen - just what she thinks will happen. What am I missing?

In my opinion, shes (probably not on purpose) shifting blame on the protestors by saying what has happened has helped crush a "tentative alliance"

I think it smacks of a patronising "I'm so disappointed in you guys" attitude, and serves little purpose in doing anything but alienating all those protesting against the bill.

I like Ash Sarkar, but I think this is really disappointing. 

 

[stumobir]

Nah, I think she’s pointing out what a lot feel about the “left”. It seems to be more about catharsis than strategically working towards a goal these days. I’m absolutely not having a go at protestors or their right to protest but when did that last achieve anything? Poll Tax maybe? The left needs to organise and work out what it’s actually trying to achieve rather than just taking to the streets with witty placards aimed at whatever today’s flavour of social injustice is. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

2 hours ago, stumobir said:

The left needs to organise and work out what it’s actually trying to achieve rather than just taking to the streets with witty placards aimed at whatever today’s flavour of social injustice is. 

It won't organise because they would sooner fall out amongst themselves about who is in charge of the ashes while the tories set the country on fire. 

[Keith Houchen]

2 hours ago, stumobir said:

 I’m absolutely not having a go at protestors or their right to protest but when did that last achieve anything?

Labour we’re going to abstain on the bill before the Sarah Everard vigil, once they got wind of public opinion they acted like they’d always been against it. You could argue that protest kick started opposition and now the bill has been shelved for a bit. 

[Factotum]

You just know those scenes though will be used to justify certain parts of the bill.

[Tamura]

9 hours ago, stumobir said:

I’m absolutely not having a go at protestors or their right to protest but when did that last achieve anything? Poll Tax maybe?

Poll Tax riots achieved a whole lot of not much, it was the massive non-payment campaign that undermined the Poll Tax.

In constrast to events like the Arab Spring and George Floyd protests which have resulted in change, protests in the UK have an alarming tendency to achieve nothing at all. People have been travelling to London for donkey's years, they march from point A to point B, maybe some shop windows get broken and a few police get injured, some people get arrested and fined or sent to prison for a little while, but everyone else goes home after and the political machine moves onwards with no change at all. If hundreds of thousands (or several million, depending on who you believe) of people marching against the Iraq War didn't stop the war, why would politicans even bother listening to what a few thousands people on smaller demonstrations have to say?

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, Tamura said:

Poll Tax riots achieved a whole lot of not much, it was the massive non-payment campaign that undermined the Poll Tax.

In constrast to events like the Arab Spring and George Floyd protests which have resulted in change, protests in the UK have an alarming tendency to achieve nothing at all. People have been travelling to London for donkey's years, they march from point A to point B, maybe some shop windows get broken and a few police get injured, some people get arrested and fined or sent to prison for a little while, but everyone else goes home after and the political machine moves onwards with no change at all. If hundreds of thousands (or several million, depending on who you believe) of people marching against the Iraq War didn't stop the war, why would politicans even bother listening to what a few thousands people on smaller demonstrations have to say?

People march and protest for all sorts of reasons though.

I marched against the Iraq war with my Grandad and it's one of the most important memories I have of us together. I was 18 years old and I felt like we were doing something worthwhile.

The fact that the Iraq war went ahead doesn't make me feel that our efforts were fruitless or that the cause was invalid.

The "protest doesn't get anywhere or change things" thought process is massively invalid IMO.

[Tamura]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

People march and protest for all sorts of reasons though.

I marched against the Iraq war with my Grandad and it's one of the most important memories I have of us together. I was 18 years old and I felt like we were doing something worthwhile.

The fact that the Iraq war went ahead doesn't make me feel that our efforts were fruitless or that the cause was invalid.

The "protest doesn't get anywhere or change things" thought process is massively invalid IMO.

I never said protest can't change anything, right at the start I gave specific examples of when protests have changed things with the caveat they are outside the UK. Yet, there is zero to little empirical evidence that marching from A to B and listening to a few people give speeches has actually changed anything in the UK, at least in living memory. And I say that as someone who has been on many demonstrations, they act at a safety valve for public anger and achieve little. In 1992 notoriously crap neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver planned a major gig in London with a redirection point (venues for Nazi gigs were never publicly advertised) at Waterloo Station, the Anti-Nazi League decided the best way to protest was to organise a march in Thornton Heath, about eight miles away from Waterloo. In contrast, Anti-Fascist Action decided the best way to protest was to physically confront the fascists at Waterloo. You can read more about it here,

https://network23.org/ra/2017/09/18/battle-of-waterloo-25th-anniversary/

The Thornton Heath affair was an aimless protest that made people think they were doing something, but achieved nothing. But the people who turned up at Waterloo did achieve something, because their protest had a specific objective which was to disrupt the gig by occupying the redirection point. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Tamura