The linked long term phenomena of falling electoral turnout and a decreasing percentage of those who do vote, voting for the two main parties, leaves politicians in power with the active support of an increasingly small minority of the population. To date this has not seriously impacted on consent – the Majority are apathetic, and devoid both of interesting sources of useful political information, and of social cohesion. Membership of organisations of horizontal solidarity is also in long term decline.
I would love to see an attempt at long term quantification of the difference between the parties in terms of the manifesto policies they offer. I have no doubt that there will be a very sharp reduction in difference, or rather policy convergence between the parties. If you look at 1911 – social insurance, pensions, power of the hereditary aristocracy, 1945 – nationalisation of major industries, initiation of the NHS and full welfare state, and 1983 – privatisation, nuclear weapons – there were very real and sharp political differences that offered voters a distinct ideological choice. The country – and your own future – could be recognisably different dependent on for whom you voted.
The last two times our government changed parties, the new party came in to pledge to continue the fiscal measures already projected by the treasury under its predecessors. Anyone who believes the Treasury would be fundamentally different under Balls or Osborne is delusional, and responding to tribalism not real difference. Who introduced tuition fees? New Labour. Who accelerated the “marketization” of the NHS? New Labour. Who vastly expanded PFI? New Labour. Who bailed out the banks? New Labour.
In effect, the parties offer exactly the same neo-con policies. NATO, Trident, Occupation of Afghanistan, Privatisation, Tuition Fees – the only apparent alternative at the last election came from the Lib Dems, and the electorate grasped at it in larger numbers than a third party had ever received before, something we have quickly forgotten. The reason that we have forgotten it is that Clegg, who was never any kind of Liberal, dumped the entire radical heritage of his party as soon as he came to power.
There is a much wider point to what happened to the Lib Dems. Two other changes – the introduction of PR for the European Parliament, and the large increase in expenses for MP’s staff – had made a radical change to that party. Lib Dem conferences were suddenly places of power dressing, not woolly jumpers. A great many young professional politicos – MPs research assistants, and staffers from Brussels – were all over the place. Bright, presentable, highly paid, most of them had no connection with liberalism, had never read John Stuart Mill or Hazlitt, had no idea who Lloyd George was and cared less. They had latched on to a rung of paid political work, had become part of the political class – that was the entire purpose of their activity. The woolly jumpered chap who had campaigned about paving stones in Salisbury and passionately wanted to abolish Trident and adopt green energy became sidelined, an amusing anachronism, the subject of the jokes of the sophisticates.
Of course, their focus groups showed that the people want policies which the ever shrinking ownership of the mass media promotes, because they are the only policies they have ever heard of. But the people no longer trust the ownership of the media, and the expenses scandal caused a much-needed scepticism of the appalling political class. People are desperate for leaders who look honest and say something different.
So do not despise UKIP supporters. They are not vicious racists. They are in fact brighter than those stupid enough to continue voting for the three neo-con parties, despite having their lives crippled for the next three decades to pay unconceivable sums to the bankers. The UKIP voters at least wish to punish the political class and wish to hear of some different policies.
The problem is that the only alternative of which the mainstream media is prepared to inform them is Mr Farage and his simple anti-foreigner maxims. Many of the bankers are keen to leave the EU, as Nigel Lawson told us. So if people want an alternative, that is the one they will be offered. Only in Scotland have people been offered a more radical alternative – and while I do not wish to exaggerate the economic radicalism of the SNP, they are markedly to the left of Westminster on issues like tuition fees, healthcare and PFI.
The great question of the day is, how to put before the population, in a way that they will notice, a radical alternative other than simple right wing populism. I have a strong belief that there remains a real desire in society for a more social policy, for a major and real check on the huge divergence between rich and poor, for good public services, for a pacific foreign policy, and for leaders not just in it for the money or to promote wealthy interests. But how do you get that message to people?
UPDATE
From comments made, there must be an ambiguity about this article which I don’t see myself. I made this clarification in a comment and I add it here for certainty:
Of course UKIP are not a real alternative. I said “do not despise UKIP supporters”, not “do not despise UKIP”. UKIP are a false “alternative” dangled by the mainstream media and the bankers. But the support for them is evidence that the public do very much want some alternative. I shall append this to the article as it must be more ambiguous than I thought.
This is where Liberal values get you up the slippery pole of personal advancement, ingratiating you to the people in power, whether you are building a career or trying to get weapons to make jihad against Assad. Everybody likes sky hooks going up.
But when you get to the top and they’re trying to pin the torture on their diplomats or the false flag bombs on their Al Qaida recruits that’s when they call in those Liberal values that anything goes. But that was only for when you\re climbing up! When you\re being spiked with ‘condoning’ everything and turning a blind eye to the reality around you, that’s when you have to fight them off.
A lot of people come to the conclusion that if you’re going to get impaled on the very sky hooks that hauled you up, if you’d stayed on the ground in the first place you’d have been better off.
And then out of my berry pay I bought this http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/plustron_plustron_tv_radio_combin.html in 1979.
Still have it and it still works 34 years later. Pity they shut down the analogue tv signal but I’ve got a little UHF low power transmitter which relays the cable channel to it in the kitchen. Don’t tell anyone.
When more extreme parties get air space they seem to act as a sort of magnet moving the mass consensus not exactly in their direction, but allowing some of their ideas to become part of the accepted discourse. Its a chicken and egg thing, and self perpetuating for a while. When Nick Griffin appeared on QT it is was a shock. He performed badly and the BNP faded, but it seemed that the very fact that he was allowed out on a respected BBC platform gave not him credence, for he came acros badly, but put immigration out on the agenda and then as if by magic centre ground politicians felt charged to talk about immigration in a way which they had not felt comfortable doing before hand. Partly it was as if they were saying they would talk about immigration to stop the BNP talking about it. They had flashed up a bogey man and then adopted some of his language.
With UKIP it isn’t so much about immigration (though they obviously attract those who bang on about that) but UKIP getting so much attention gives credence to the idea of leaving europe and so centre party politicians who wouldn’t previously have discussed it, who would have treated it as taboo move into that dialogue, and drip by drip the possibility of leaving Europe gains wider possibility. Is an exit worth considering, not if mooted by UKIP and not if UKIP are in the driving seat, but anyway if the idea gains momentum then it gains its own life. Repeated in the mainstream its repetition makes it possible. I suspect a variant is more likely.
So extreme parties sometimes give birth to ideas, but may themselves die in labour. They function as a cross between a herald and a bogeyman. Their idea is then adopted and raised in a more main stream way.
Are people keen to wake up to change, or just happy to follow whatever message is repeated? Maybe it does not take many influential people to create a resonance of a new idea, which might gain momentum. Are there such people? Do they have a good idea? if the people are influential and the time is right, perhaps they may apear to make some changes. Probably the ideas are shallow and everyone stays asleep. What is wrong with working with what we have in our small daily lives and looking at that and seeing if we can make some difference.
Of course people need a magnet to pull them into a change of direction, but who are we to plan such changes. Whatever happened to old fashioned pragmatism and muddling along making only slow adjustments, correcting as we go along step by step with a good heart. Idealism, right or left is usually a day dream. Buddhists have wars, hippies make money, socialists turn out to be only feathering their own nest. It is all nothing unless we keep an eye on ourselves, which is something we all fail to do.
On leaving Europe: I can see a variant occurring. Just as China has one country two systems, so europe can have one, eh whatever it will be, one federal state and two systems with UK, or perhaps England as an offshore HK type centre. Maybe it could pan out alright for England, but whether it would be a good idea generally I don’t know. It is hardly an ideal, but could perhaps be a consequence of the current direction.
This sums it up “the Majority are apathetic”.
Those who own the media, the banks, the government (The Bilderbergers?) are in charge and most people, even many of my friends, are apathetic because these evil few thousand people have conditioned the masses. Friday marked 100 days of prisoner hunger-striking in Guantanamo. There was a demonstration in London on Saturday, and I donned some orange overalls for four hours in Birmingham City Centre (later moving to St Phillip’s Cathedral) in solidarity. I had tried to get others involved but ended up being the only protester in the UK’s second city against the monstrosity known as Guantanamo Bay.
Shaker Aamer has been ‘cleared for release’ for six years. They water-boarded him, and tortured him in abominable ways. He is known in Guantanmo as “The Professor”, an intelligent man who has a ten year old son he has never seen all because of the US ‘war in Islam’. Is it not worth showing solidarity with Shaker? It would appear not.
Ben – an email address of [email protected] gives the gravatar sunglasses avatar. I am not Glenn if that was what you were wondering.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=adam&last=werritty&search=Search&searchType=fps
0 Results for adam werritty
An exact match for adam werritty could not be found.
Attended a packed Yes Scotland (cross party) event at Old Gala House in Galashiels this evening. The object is simply one of connecting people in the disparate towns and villages, informally organising for further events across the Borders; long before any intensive campaigning begins, support is multiplying. A convivial meeting, but quite formal, lacking something – perhaps some musical entertainment and refreshments- it was preaching to the choir mostly but won some new support outright. One person stood up during the Q&A, possibly a plant, muttered something incoherent about Europe and UKIP and walked out before any of the speakers could even figure out what his point was, never mind try address it.
Support for the centralising model of EU though is at a low-ebb, though mutual trade to and from the countries of Europe is as strong an incentive as ever to co-operate on standards, uniform worker’s and citizens rights, environmental protection, and tariff-free easy movement of goods, between sellers and buyers. Discrete issues though aren’t so important just now as is the success of the Yes vote, after which WE will have a say ourselves on: NATO, monarchy, the EU and the timetable for removing WMD from the Clyde, amongst other issues on which the final say for the Scots, rests with the Scots –only with Independence.
The Hootsmon ‘newspaper’ was the butt of many jokes, with its total detachment from reality and its daily most ludicrous scares, unspoken though implicit was that the same newspaper group also has a monopoly on local newspapers in the region and this well of poison cannot avoid, indeed is noticeably contaminating the local titles too, to the detriment of their already perilous credibility and viability. Local Lib-Dem MP and Scottish Secretary Micheal Moore (aka Lurch) now openly a Tory tool, was of course conspicuously absent, just as well as the mood in the heart of his own constituency is that his ‘jaikit is on a shaky nail’.
Peebles tomorrow (Wednesday), Hawick Thursday and Haddington Farmer’s Market on Saturday.
http://www.yesscotland.net/events
May I just say, I couldn’t agree less with the idea we need a charismatic leader. Komodo made some good points, but respectfully, I’m with Occupy on this one: the leaderless structure is what was good about Occupy. Not everyone agrees on this; respected left commentator, Paul Street, who is always excellent, thought the structure unhelpful, for one.
However, I distrust the whole charismatic leader vibe. It’s just Tony Blair redux. Take the Greens. If they ever got a sniff of power, all of a sudden a ‘charismatic’ leader will almost certainly appear, making promises about getting ‘over the top’ and whispering about how much good they can do if only they make the necessary compromises to attain power – and then all of a sudden this ‘charismatic’ leader is given far more credit than they deserve, and parley this political credit into policies at variance with what the party actually stands for. No to charisma, it’s an over-rated vice anyway.
As it goes, I conclude that charisma and narcissism are often inextricably linked. Your charismatic individual is likely to end up vain, self-centred, ego focused, because … well, I’m not sure. Perhaps being showered with praise corrupts a person. Or, perhaps, more interestingly, charisma is actually the visible manifestation of a flaw, certainly when it is taken to extremes.
I speculate idly. Alas, my comments are negative, not constructive. I suspect that less of the former, and more of the latter are, to answer Craig’s question, a start on the long road.
The bankers are dangling UKIP? What world are you living in, Craig? Not the real one, that’s for sure.
Neil Barker
In the real world it is a fact that the bankers concealed the truth about their criminal salting away of funds into their own pockets from the time of Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the exchequer.
They manipulated New Labour back into the box where Mrs Thatcher had shoved them with her daft ponzi economy schemes, by monstrous, humungous lies on a devastating scale. This has made Gordon Brown and the rest of New Labour look incompetent and stupid. No, they were lied to and manipulated by reckless, selfish, criminal bankers.
If you don’t understand that the bankers blackmail the government, then you don’t understand anything about the stupidity of the Thatcher plan to trust the banking class.
Racist UKIP is the odour-eating paper tree dangling from the car mirror to hide the stench of banker greed and corruption.
They dangle them with their usual utter cynicism and recklessness, as a decoy from their own criminality in order to fool the masses into a fascist swerve to the right. Exactly the same as before the two world wars.
Craig lives in the real world, not in the froth of Tory wanked-out ideas. The Tories would not have been re-elected in 50 years if Clegg and Ashdown had a grain of principle. They think they are so clever for shoving these mad, cruel decrees of austerity down our throats. Tories and bankers will be dangled from electoral gibbets in a couple of years, if not before.
Some researcher has discovered that Gay marriage might be a vote winner amongst former New Labour and LibDem supporters. What cynical, barking, stuffed tigers. No principals, no ideas, no solutions. Just hair-brained schemes to divert the election to their side.
April Showers reminded us of the illusion of democracy and Dave and Indigo agreed ‘democracy’ is a ‘pig in a poke’ – the ‘common people’ are no longer stood for at the top. Today no such democratic vision and accountability is permitted in through the revolving doors of big-money control.
I said yesterday, change is an illusion, a brand, a circle of events presented in a different order. There is no light in change.
We have witnessed ‘the worst crimes against humanity under law, perpetrated without respite – murder, assassination, deprivation of access to food , water and medicine, forcible transfers of population, torture, persecution, false imprisonment, enforced disappearances, plunder of public property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages’
These are all crimes against humanity under law. This is the antithesis of Craig’s ‘great message of the day.’ How do you get that message to people?
My approach is not political – the political system has failed us. Why use it? The alternative stares us in the face. We must take the judicial route to expose these crimes, these violations, this immorality.
Our friend Dr David Halpin and his wife Sue took a brave legal stance (even after his computer systems were attacked and evidence ‘disappeared’) and challenged the official verdict on the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly. David Halpin said, ‘We reject haemorrhage as the cause of death and see no contrary opinion which would stand its ground. I think it is highly likely he was assassinated.’
David Halpin has lead the way and given us guidance. Our country is corrupt at the top down.
Our Democracy is corrupt. Money is used to pay people off. It must be time to recognise the undeniable criminal agents and institutions now ruling us.
In a direct stand against fear and the trepidation of being branded a ‘terrorist’ we can identify the lead individuals and institutions as proven mass murderers and oppressors for power and gain. Simply by connecting with each other, with trust, we can expose the truth in law and the knaves and tyrants lose their face and legitimacy.
These tyrants who drape themselves in flag and country – fear this exposure
so much they seal the lips of their citizens by terror. In the course of time they will collapse as they are increasingly recognised as what they are – the vilest criminals, serial murderers, liars, torturers, looters of others’ lives and resources. We can make their time short.
Finer, fitter and better people here in our community can make this due process happen.
Don’t vote, give-for truth! Giving is our pitch-fork. We can depend on it. Our case is the light at the end of a 100 year tunnel!
Day at the Berries@ 8 : 11 pm and 9 : 36pm… That brought back Memories. There was a Subclass of people – aspiring students of wich where the most hopeful, many of the rest were a ravaged Motely Crew from Pretty much the Lowest rung of the Social Ladder. The pittance paid to Ruhbarb pickers / cutters was shocking when compared to the Price of a tin of the stuff in tesco…And yes the unemployment Gestapo would turn up. people fleeing through fields with their razor sharp Knifes, there was always someone requring stitches in hands / fingers at the Ruhbarb cutting.
I Find that pretty much everyone around me don’t mind Alex Salmond’s Size as any kind of issue, But Even the uninformed appear to support the SNP. When i say uninformed i mean MSM junkies…bbc daily record, ect
John @ 10 ; 24 is spot on The few Own the Media, but its not just media news manipulation, it’s pop music, Film, tv shows.
April Showers @ 3;02 pm
John Hilley Has a Couple of Great Posts About bbc Bias, the latest of which being an exchange over bbc bias with regards IBC
http://johnhilley.blogspot.co.uk/2013_05_01_archive.html
VERY Well said Mark. i fear one of the problems is that they make such Damn sure of protecting themselves, Will it come down to the Army refusing to turn on the people i wonder, Cos the police are well owned…as many a demo is witness F%ckers
@ Mark U
With regards to the immigration issue, there is no causal relationship between unemployment and immigration.
During the 50s there was mass immigration but near full employment.
Conversely, during the 30s, there was mass unemployment but almost zero immigration.
It is misguided to scapegoat immigrants for a problem whose source stems from the vagaries of the market.
Independent or not, we are a socialist community in a capitalist environment. As the comteol of the money supply- commodities is at least under control of the same Capitalist system. We know, from our recent eploitations in the middle East.
The few Major banks and corporations are leading us with their capitalist aims into communism
Great so will this form of socialism flourish?
We are at present still able to build and re-build, put in place the foundations for a future that will be representituve of our best peoples high achievements.
Politics is preventing us.
This Ukip is just further division, How can we enhance society and the world we live in.
Birds, Bees,plants and people’s?
“I am now, out of interest, going to look for reasons to stay in the EU – beyond the Human Rights Act…”
Human Rights Act nothing to do with the EU. Comes under the auspice of the Council of Europe so leaving the EU won’t mean we can automatically withdraw from the ECHR.
Day at the Berries. Someone else is using that avatar calling himself Pete Meat. He left an unpleasant post on the Werritty thread yesterday.
~~~
PS Spellcheck does not like ‘werritty’. It suggests warranty or verity. Also ferity.
fer·i·ty
n.
1. The state of being wild or untamed.
2. The state of being savage; ferocity.
Ooh er Missus!
Brian and Jay.
10% of UK wildlife ‘endangered’
A stocktake of UK nature suggests 60% of animal and plant species have declined in the past 50 years – and one in 10 could end up disappearing. BBC Nature
Scots wildlife ‘faces rising threat’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/22609000
So what have we been doing? And what has been the use of the multiple conservation charities concerned with the environment other than to record the declines? RSPB, WWF, English Nature, the county based Wildlife Trusts, et al.
Anyone seen a honey bee this Spring? I have not. I used to have frogs and toads by the dozen in my garden, sand lizards, smooth snakes, hedgehogs, thrushes, starlings, house martins, wagtails, wrens, goldcrests, pipistrelle bats, etc etc. Over the 30 years that I have lived here they have all disappeared. I do not use chemicals and I try to make the space friendly to wild life by leaving weeds and nettles, using nectar bearing flowers and shrubs and providing plenty of cover. Dead wood is left on the ground to decay.
It is both sad and worrying.
April Showers, we have honey bees living in our wall cavity. They send decoys out to fly by the door to distract from the real holes they are using. None of us has been stung. I started by phoning pest-control but there is no humane way of dealing with them. Especially as there is a fall in honey-bee population I do not want to disturb them but come the winter feel I must cement up their entrances. Has anybody got any suggestions?
Giles, I am beginning to suspect you are on some kind of greenwash programme for Exxon (or Cuadrilla), if you are involved in conservation, as you say.
It is untrue to say that global temperatures have not risen for the last 17 years. Maybe that comes from one of the 24 (out of 13,950) peer-reviewed papers on the subject? Do cite it, please. The rate of increase has slowed, sure. That isn’t the same thing. Nor does it invalidate the basic premiss, that the average temperature across the world is rising, and will continue to rise unless CO2 emissions are cut drastically. In private, even the oil companies admit this. As a result of thermal expansion and continental icecap melting, sea levels won’t just rise in theory, but ARE rising. As a result of the oceans’ buffering capacity for CO2 being saturated, coral reefs won’t just die in theory but ARE dying – http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2006/05/warming-coral.html –
You’re in denial, and I fully sympathise. The prospect for your descendants is much worse than you like to think. You can’t see it’s happening, and you don’t want to see it happening, you’re interested in local conservation and focused on the smaller picture.
Just a thought from Hawaii, where the highest atmospheric concentration of CO2 to date was recorded a month or so ago…
Most folks in Hawaii agree with the scientific consensus that climate change is real.
We believe it because “we’ve experienced it in a way that other people in America have not,” explains Dr. Melissa Finucane, a senior fellow at the East-West Center who specializes in climate risk perception. “If you go to Honaunau and see that the site where Captain Cook died is now underwater, it’s hard to say sea level is not rising. You can see beaches eroding; streams that you played in as a child are dry. Those kinds of experiences touch people in a way that’s really hard to get across with statistics and science.”
http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2012/12/climate-change-in-hawai%E2%80%98i-it%E2%80%99s-here/
@John Goss
Just leave them … we’ve had a hive in the wall outside our back door for as long as we’ve lived here (seven years).
The buzz of each as he goes back to the hive with his bounty gives me pleasure … I know that, despite the filthy stuff manufactured by Monsanto et al he has found his way home again.
It’s my sound of summer …
Scotland did have a radical alternative. the Scottish Socialist Party, but Tommy Sheridan got “Craig Murried” by the state.
Brendan: May I just say, I couldn’t agree less with the idea we need a charismatic leader.
History shows that successful revolutions depend on two things: a charismatic leader and good publicity. “We” (this lizard least of all) don’t want a charismatic leader and a marketing wonk. But “we” sure as hell do need them.
Anyway, despite what Fred thinks when in his cups, Alex’s not a bad model for a publicity-conscious charismatic leader. It doesn’t have to be Tim Bell and Margaret Thatcher…
Komodo. My thoughts exactly on our friend with the Mandarin Duck avatar. He seems to have a lot of spare time away from the ‘Con- Servation.
Speaking of ducks, last year there were dozens and dozens of mallard ducklings on the river here. This year there are just two females, one with a near fully grown duckling and another one newly hatched??, and the other who has six newly hatched ducklings including two that are creamy white coloured and not the usual multi coloured. Different dads to account for the latter or some genetic change?
So cute as they paddle furiously to keep up.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/63/154636158_2c3915ff8a.jpg
http://www.daviddrufke.com/photography-blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ForestLake09-0039-blog.jpg
John: Re bees.
Have you asked a local bee-keeper to take a look. They are a generally friendly and helpful species.
If the bees’ flight-path is not causing people to get stung you may want to consider constructing an observation hive on the inside wall for them to expand their hive into. A simple box construction (10″ deep and 24″x 36″in size) with a well sealed and sturdy hinged glass front covered by a hinged wooden shutter. That way you can both give them a sanctuary, enjoy observing them, and best of all you can break off an occasional sweet reward for your trouble.
If you really feel you need to remove them and don’t want to poison or trapp them inside, here’s something I saw once. I have seen a huge wild hive behind a plaster wall dismantled by a well-suited* beekeeper using a Dyson vacuum cleaner. With this he sucked the bees up as he broke off the combs. He tried in vain to locate the queen as he worked in the hope of at least saving enough of the colony to move to a new hive.
The whole process happened over about two hours and the bees got sucked up and spun to death before they could produce their alarm scent. Pretty grisly but I think it was a quick and sudden death, preferable to poisoning or being walled in. At the end of the process there was a bucket of dead bees and three buckets of honeycombs.
And no, I am not insane.
Alternately you can find Dad. I’m sure he would have something entertaining to suggest.
*Not Armani.
Not sure that Salmond’s value to the independence movement is as a leader. Within the SNP he tends to be respected rather than liked, and his leadership style has caused occasional ructions (remember he was removed for a while and replaced by Swinney). His value is as a champion of the cause, the debater that nobody wants to face, the interviewee who cannot be intimidated or wrong-footed. Of course he has a great advantage in that he can tell the truth, whereas his opponents (who include most BBC interviewers) must avoid it at all costs.
Tommy Sheridan was getting close to performing the same role for the more radical left – ironically it was a failure to tell the truth that destroyed him. I know that he was advised by a friend, a prominent legal figure, that he should not pursue his case against NOTW as even winning it would damage him. Silly boy.
OT I know!
John.
Here’s a good read for you, after which you will have a feel for the creatures you are sharing your home with.
“Bees and Honey” Ted Hooper. ISBN 0 7137 0782 8
Thanks to all for a great thread.
Perhaps those here rejecting democracy; accusing the electorate of apathy and of being slow on the uptake (the sheeple tag has been used in the past); failing to recognise that compromises have to be made with those with who they disagree or are not in total disagreement in order to acheive a consensus and something like stablity which is what most people want; and pooh poohing the real differences that do exist between our political parties (e.g. there is a lot of difference between seekiing to cut the deficit when growth is established and trying to do so strtaightway over the life of the parliament) – might just wish to reflect that the history of political change being brought about by small groups of the ideologically pure isn’t particularly promising.
Might I suggest that we have hard fought for democratic institutions in this country and that if you wish to change things then you use them, but a warning for the faint hearted and lazy this is not an easy route. You have to meet a lot of people and talk to them and convince them to change their minds – they are the 99% after all and not a few like minded people in tents or on this blog.
It should of course be noted that Craig is one of those fickle creatures who as a LibDem member personally voted for this coalition; so that is probably one reason why he would like to argue that they are no different from New Labour, against whom he clearly has a deep and personal animus. And is now flirting with Scottish nationalism – which if the recent clash with UKIPs southern English nationalists is any thing to go for has already started its slide into the nastier forms of nationalism, which as Orwell pointed out is an inevitable consequence of all forms of nationalism. I found it quite noteworthy that Salmond was only prepared to condemn those who protested against Farage if it could be proven that they had broken the law – which of course allows quite a degree of unpleasantness before that threshold is broken. The next stage of course is to control the law enforcement officers so that they can develop selective blindness.
Yes, Resident Dissident, like we’re going to be patronised by the likes of you and Dad into being blind and dumb.
And of course the British state would never consider any unpleasantness would it? Oh, apart from wars of conquest, torture, development and possession of illegal weapons of mass destruction, arms trading, Dublin and Monoghhan bombings, fostering of organised banksterism, deep-state child abuse (Kincora Boy’s Home and Jimmy Saville probably just the tip of the iceberg), wasting police time harassing dissidents, unaccountable state security organisations………….Sorry I wont use up the next 1000 valuable lines of the “fickle” Craig’s blog, but I think you get the gist
But apart from those trifles, what a magnificent example of a democracy the great people of Britain people have fought so hard create! Why would anyone assume it could be improved?
Komodo wrote:
“Just a thought from Hawaii, where the highest atmospheric concentration of CO2 to date was recorded a month or so ago…”
Indeed, the Hawaiian CO2 monitoring has shown a slow and steady increase from 1960 to the present; so naturally, any time from then until now, will have been “highest” recorded state with respect to previous times, since station monitoring started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
I estimate the increase in CO2 from approximately 315 ppm in 1960, to 390 ppm at the present; or about 24% increase. Meanwhile Global oil use has been approximately doubling for every 7 years since 1960 [this doubling rate has slowed in the last decade]; hence fossil fuel burning has increased globally by several hundred percent in the same period that CO2 increased by a measly 24%.
This lack of large increase in CO2 may account for this:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=71369
Your kilometerage may vary.
PS. All the carbon of the worlds total fossil fuels, including coal, and chalk downs and coral reefs, used to be part of the primordial atmosphere, in the form of CO2. The Cretaceous period had approximately 600% more CO2 in its atmosphere compared to today, yet life thrived as a result; for the climate was a bit warmer, but not catastrophically so, and the plants were well fed to the point that they didn’t need broad leaves, as they do today.