paulfromcamden
Baffled
Suggestions Gav?Voting green (or for anyone else) won't make a blind bit of difference, it's just a similar dead end. When we all realise that much maybe strides can be made...
Suggestions Gav?Voting green (or for anyone else) won't make a blind bit of difference, it's just a similar dead end. When we all realise that much maybe strides can be made...
Voting green (or for anyone else) won't make a blind bit of difference, it's just a similar dead end. When we all realise that much maybe strides can be made...
The problem with Green imv is that many think Green = Naive.
the central fact of the climate crisis is that there is very little time, and the scale of the political challenge increases with each passing day. The importance of acting as swiftly as possible scrambles our usual political and moral coordinates, forcing us to look beyond the political and economic solutions we might usually hope for, and more favourably on those which are considered ‘realistic’. Waiting for solutions to emerge in a bottom-up fashion, whether from activists or from markets, is not sufficient...Only the state has the power, the money and the coordinating capacity to direct capital investment at sufficient scale and speed towards the renewables sector...The priority, as it has been now for decades, is to go as big and as soon as possible.
I’m probably fortunate in living in a fairly safe Labour seat. I can vote green at comparatively low risk. If you live in a Labour marginal, or a Tory seat that might go Labour with enough support, the decision to vote Green is fraught with more risk. Not an easy choice, under our present system.Well, by voting green we can at least *TRY*. The alternatives are essentially: 'Give up and die whining "its not fair!"
Honesty may be the best policy.
On a slight (vague tangent) there was a piece on radio 4 this morning, Sunday, about assigning a form of citizenship to whales, either in New Zealand or wider Polynesia.There's a terrific article in London Review of Books by Will Davies (here) that mulls over some of these issues. It's ostensibly a review of The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save The Planet by Brett Christophers, but it reads as a diagnosis of the present moment. Davies writes:
Corrupt! It's amazing how cheaply he's been bought off really considering what these firms stand to gain!Labour's Wes Streeting takes £175k from donors linked to private health firms
LABOUR shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has continued to accept tens of thousands of pounds from donors with links to private healthcare while…www.thenational.scot
You must be one of those whining middle-class lefties Gav.Corrupt! It's amazing how cheaply he's been bought off really considering what these firms stand to gain!
Just smart enough to realise what they're up to. That's really an attack on being educated and wise to Labour's support for the rich...You must be one of those whining middle-class lefties Gav.
Alas, a bit more isn't enough. Reality doesn't care what people think, only about what they do. And the problem is that Labour is akin to the Tories - unwilling to face up to what it needed *urgently*. Whatever people may wish to believe, behaviour shows quite clearly that Labour follow the same dogmas as the Tories - but with a nice smile - and we are already reaching the point where changes will be too late or require much more *difficult* situations along the way. i.e. cost is all more in terms of the damage that will be done by the climate to our ability to live, eat, etc.
No matter how you try to look at it the reality has been clear for many years. To get the changes we need people have to vote for them. But waiting until someone else "goes first" means no-one goes anywhere... except to disaster for all those who can't take a rocket to Mars!
You don’t have to be smart to see what they’re up to, just read what they say. Streeting is being quite open and honest, he is telling everyone out loud that the NHS is going to be further privatised.Just smart enough to realise what they're up to. That's really an attack on being educated and wise to Labour's support for the rich...
I agree but Labour is hoping that millions won't see it for what it is and they want to marginalise those that do as lefties, hippies etc etc - there's enough of them here after all !You don’t have to be smart to see what they’re up to, just read what they say. Streeting is being quite open and honest, he is telling everyone out loud that the NHS is going to be further privatised.
This is the bit I don't get, Labour is telling everyone that they will literally hold the doors wide open to privatisation of the NHS.I agree but Labour is hoping that millions won't see it for what it is - there's enough of them here after all !
People are hoping beyond hope (completely irrationally) that Labour is going to be transformative after a decade and a half of misery. That is why the fall is going to be so painful in a couple of years time. It's the same explanation for the growth in the far right across Europe i.e the failures of the centre (left) parties to deliver on expectations.I guess it’s another example of comfortable lie being more palatable than an uncomfortable truth
Yes I suspect "blame it on the Tories" will only get them so far.People are hoping beyond hope (completely irrationally) that Labour is going to be transformative after a decade and a half of misery. That is why the fall is going to be so painful in a couple of years time. It's the same explanation for the growth in the far right across Europe i.e the failures of the centre (left) parties to deliver on expectations.
Surely Labour must also have done this analysis for itself. And if, as you suggest, a painful fall happens within the next parliament, that just opens the door to the far right to walk right in, as there's only one alternative to Labour, in many minds. Do they not see the risk that, if they fail to enact significant change and improvement quickly and decisively, they will just be enablers of Fascism in due course?People are hoping beyond hope (completely irrationally) that Labour is going to be transformative after a decade and a half of misery. That is why the fall is going to be so painful in a couple of years time. It's the same explanation for the growth in the far right across Europe i.e the failures of the centre (left) parties to deliver on expectations.
I don't think they care, they hope to ride the train for as long as they can. Look what happened to Blair in the May 1999 local elections, neck and neck with the Tories only two years after the landslide, coupled with a historic loss of councillors. The bit you have to grasp is the Labour MPs are in it primarily for their own careers but the system is much more volatile than it was a generation ago - witness the rapid collapse of Johnson...Surely Labour must also have done this analysis for itself. And if, as you suggest, a painful fall happens within the next parliament, that just opens the door to the far right to walk right in, as there's only one alternative to Labour, in many minds. Do they not see the risk that, if they fail to enact significant change and improvement quickly and decisively, they will just be enablers of Fascism in due course?