the socialism of fools

[DannyL]

Could be Prime Minister in 6 weeks time. Fucking hell. As Thatcher said to Reagan "you ain't seen nothing yet".

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Something that might make sense of him is the fact that he voted against his own party something like 400+ times, when they were in power

oh yeah dude, good luck with that

strangely enough I happen to be pretty well-versed in the history of British prime ministers, and I cannot see that going well

 

[subvert47]

Could be Prime Minister in 6 weeks time.

I certainly hope so.

 

[DannyL]

That's when his problems will really start.

Thought this was good, and apposite:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/04/elections-solutions-politics-scandal-lies

The occasions when an election could thrash out national differences, decide a victor and then accord them the stability and space to implement their programme belong to another age, along with Thatcher, Churchill, Attlee and the rest.

 

[luka]

Yeah, I don't read him as nice, not when he's challenged anyway. Something that might make sense of him is the fact that he voted against his own party something like 400+ times, when they were in power. Quite a streak. His career is defined by going against the grain. Defined by holding marginal positions.

What you have to remember is that this is the very reason he is leader. Normal people, and when I say normal, I mean people like me, don't want insiders, they want someone to declare war. We aren't willing to accept business as usual. We want someone prepared to send billionaires to the labour camps. We want someone who will root out corruption and drain the swamp. We want someone prepared to execute our enemies, string them up in the streets for the vultures to gnaw on.

 

[luka]

We're sick and tired of the way things are. We want to smash it all up and set it on fire. We're not happy. We think we are living through an emergency. We want killing and flames and war.

 

[luka]

We want to purge the sickness. We want to root out evil. We want a moral uprising. A new Puritanism. We want the world turned upside down.

 

[luka]

We want a European Taliban. We want soldiers of faith. We want to sweep it all away.

 

[luka]

Total moral intransigence. No compromise. No surrender. We want to take our country back.

 

[luka]

We want to see the mighty brought low. We want to see our oppressors cower in the mud.

 

[luka]

We want to work for a cause we believe in. We want to suffer nobly. We want to die for our faith.

 

[luka]

This is the popular mood. The days of timid, compromised, corrupt centrism have gone. Now the battle lines have been drawn. Now is the time for blood and fury.

 

[luka]

We're sick and tired of reasonable men, of clubbable, affable, crooked men. We want Savonarolas, Cromwells, Luthers. We want virtue as cold and unyielding as steel. We want war.

 

[luka]

We want to destroy the men who poison our food, who poison our air, who bring droughts and floods upon us, we want to parade the mutilated corpses of those who poison our societies with hate and fear, who pollute our information supply with lies, we want slaughter those who feed us filth and toxins, who let families die in burning tower blocks or freeze to death in the back of lorries or drown in the seas around Europe. We want kill the people who refuse help to the helpless and withhold medicine from the sick. We want to kill the people who build houses for the rich and let the poor sleep and die in the streets. We want to turn the world upside down. We want total all out war.

 

[DannyL]

This very much fits the thread subject tbh 'cos how that works out in practice normally is having an outgroup to blame it all on. And then string up.

 

[DannyL]

Shit changes when you have a family (and a nascent new career in my case). I want less uproar and outrage, not more. Obvs this is sticking my head in the sand with climate change on its way. I don't think I'm likely to get it either.

Re. the anger you're expressing....One reason I think things could v much break in Corbyn's favour is 'cos of optimism, which is v different from rage. Lot of young supporters, a more positive take on things, a Green New Deal, no less. Who could possible believe Boris Johnson giving you an optimistic take? That could work for him as well.

 

[luka]

No one knows which way it will fall and the thing is, as a rule, there's usually a more or less fifty fifty split in any case. People lean left or they lean right and there's always a pretty even distribution. People make up all sorts of after the facts rationalisations of course. In the Obama years we were told demographics is destiny and therefore republicans could never rule again. Not enough white men left. Nowadays no event ever happens without Russia being mysteriously behind it. Or Facebook. Or the two in cahoots.

 

[luka]

Storytelling for adult children.

 

[Leo]

We're sick and tired of the way things are. We want to smash it all up and set it on fire. We're not happy. We think we are living through an emergency. We want killing and flames and war.

literally the exact sentiments of the trump base, albeit for some different reasons than you mention later.

 

[luka]

Yes Leo that's why I used their language. I didn't think it was that subtle.