droodzilla
pfm Member
Any ideas about how to survive four more years of this?
Culture War
- Thread starter droodzilla
- Start date
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
As Voltaire wrote: 'we must cultivate our garden'
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/cultivate-own-garden-voltaire/
'What did Voltaire mean with his gardening advice? That we must keep a good distance between ourselves and the world, because taking too close an interest in politics or public opinion is a fast route to aggravation and danger. We should know well enough at this point that humans are troublesome and will never achieve – at a state level – anything like the degree of logic and goodness we would wish for. We should never tie our personal moods to the condition of a whole nation or people in general; or we would need to weep continuously. We need to live in our own small plots, not the heads of strangers.'
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/cultivate-own-garden-voltaire/
'What did Voltaire mean with his gardening advice? That we must keep a good distance between ourselves and the world, because taking too close an interest in politics or public opinion is a fast route to aggravation and danger. We should know well enough at this point that humans are troublesome and will never achieve – at a state level – anything like the degree of logic and goodness we would wish for. We should never tie our personal moods to the condition of a whole nation or people in general; or we would need to weep continuously. We need to live in our own small plots, not the heads of strangers.'
droodzilla
pfm Member
The serious point is that, unless I've missed it, the Conservatives offer nothing that will improve the lives of anyone who isn't already fabulously wealthy, or at least comfortably off (contrast Thatcher's vision, of a share-holding, home-owning democracy).
Based on their current, catastrophic record, they will also continue to rack up policy failures between now and 2024. So all they have left is endless culture war to rile up the base, and distract voters from their cruelty and incompetence.
WIth the far-right press on their side, and a cowed state broadcaster, there's every chance it will work.
Based on their current, catastrophic record, they will also continue to rack up policy failures between now and 2024. So all they have left is endless culture war to rile up the base, and distract voters from their cruelty and incompetence.
WIth the far-right press on their side, and a cowed state broadcaster, there's every chance it will work.
Fatmarley
"It appears my intelligence circuits have melted"
Didn't I read somewhere that the person or people at the top of the BBC are obviously Tories? Also, the Photoshoped picture of JC to make him look Russian, and that Tory reporter who talked about voting results on live tv when she shouldn't have. Did John Sweeney the whistle blower work for.ths BBC? If so, all that business too. There's other stuff too but I can't remember what.
Point being - it sounds to me like they want the right-wing to think the BBC is left-wing, but it clearly isn't when it really matters (when it's dirtying a possible future PMs name for example. Or trying to influence how people vote).
Point being - it sounds to me like they want the right-wing to think the BBC is left-wing, but it clearly isn't when it really matters (when it's dirtying a possible future PMs name for example. Or trying to influence how people vote).
Barrymagrec
pfm Member
The repetitive stupidity put out in the joke papers and by nutjob commentators every time a change to the poisonous nature of the Last Night is suggested simply proves what an outdated and nasty institution it is.
The Proms are a great music event but they can easily do without the Last Night farce.
The Proms are a great music event but they can easily do without the Last Night farce.
Darmok
pfm Member
Deport the lot of em to the Isle of White.
claire.foxx
-⃝⃤
Stand on Zanzibar II - electric boogaloo
‘last night…’ a TV karaoke of Rule Britannia & Land of Hope & Glory-hole played to an empty hall free of drunk gammonite farts in Union Jack tat & plastic party hats, silent-mouthing & stumbling through words they never bothered to learn — sums-up pox-ridden Brexshit Ingerland in 2020 nicely.
‘last night…’ a TV karaoke of Rule Britannia & Land of Hope & Glory-hole played to an empty hall free of drunk gammonite farts in Union Jack tat & plastic party hats, silent-mouthing & stumbling through words they never bothered to learn — sums-up pox-ridden Brexshit Ingerland in 2020 nicely.
Tony L
Administrator
This is a point I have made many times and I really wish more people grasped. The modern Conservative Party really has nothing whatsoever to do with the party of the ‘70s and ‘80s. It has been taken back under the total control of the wealthiest public school educated tax-exile oligarchy and every single policy, government department, state service or state asset is for sale to the highest bidder. It is an oligarchy, a kleptocracy. The class mobility and small business ideology of Thatcher has been replaced entirely with the actions and rhetoric of Trump, Putin, Bannon, Farage and the class warrior Bullingdon Club. The last remnants of the old Conservative Party were purged prior to the last election. That whole mindset is long gone.
Far too many people look at Johnson and just see a bumbling elitist oaf and assume he is pretty harmless. He really isn’t. This is just as extreme a political groundshift as Trump‘s reimagined Republican Party is in the US. It is cut from exactly the same cloth. Hugely dangerous IMHO.
Nick_G
pfm Member
"Beware those men, the jokers and the tricksters and the clowns. They will laugh us into Hell."
sean99
pfm Member
welcome to republican America.
I see only two options - the Voltaire approach and emigration. You can certainly get involved politically but at this point in history I’m afraid the left is swimming against the tide.
Seanm
pfm Member
It’s the logical endpoint of Thatcherism, not a break from it. Economic Thatcherism was never popular (or actually, really, about the free market and entrepreneurialism). It always needed racism and authoritarianism. Now it’s exhausted economically there’s nothing else left but racism and authoritarianism and they’re going to have to work those things very hard in the coming years.
They can’t do it without the press, and supplementary support from the rest of the media system. British media is the worst in the world, from a political perspective, and in some ways it’s the real problem here. Can’t really see anything changing until everyone involved in the scam is dead, TBH, because they’re not going to let go willingly and there’s no-one to stop them.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Any ideas about how to survive four more years of this?
Stop reading papers that you know have views and values that you don't share?
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Against all the doom and gloom, the Tories have absolutely no prospect of delivering the promised 'levelling-up' or Northern Powerhouse stuff to placate ex-Labour votes in the North of England, they have pissed-off a generation of would-be university students and their parents, and their cluelessness around COVID has been plain for all to see. History suggests that when a party has no credible opposition, it turns on itself. Anyone who funds the Tory party, or is a current MP, can see that unless Boris shapes up soon, he will have to be ousted, but I doubt he'd go willingly. So we could see the Tories tear themselves to bits for a couple of years. Well, I can dream.
claire.foxx
-⃝⃤
Notable leader of the Conservative party immediately following Major was William Hague a fine political Historian (a bit partisan, looks up to Churchill a bit too much for my liking) possibly now a functioning adult.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
But Ken Clarke was never leader of the Tory party. We had the inimitable 'Never underestimate the power of a quiet man' Iain Duncan Smith, and 'Something of the Night' Michael Howard. Donkeys led by donkeys.
mandryka
pfm Member
We've just had a relatively unauthoritarian lockdown.