Help us in Britain!

[Hen]

If you weren't aware, since the financial crash and the election of a conservative-led coalition government, a lot of shit has been going down in the UK.

There has been a widespread review of government spending in all ministries, and in a bid to eradicate wasteful spending and cut the deficit, there has been MASSIVE cuts. Some people say it is justified. The deficit really is that big, and the government warn of Greece-type scenario occurring in the UK should the deficit not be dealt with. Other people say it is ideologically driven - shrinking government and leaving the recovery to the private sector. Supporters say that despite the nature of the market, the private sector is a wealth generator that stimulates economic growth and raises the collective standard of living. Obviously, writing in revleft shows that I think this is bullshit. I have no faith in the private sector. However, writing in the learning section shows that I do need help convincing those who have faith in the private sector...

Of course..I have posed wage slavery and the alienation of labour to the unconvinced. I am often shot down by numbing arguments such as 'that's life'.

[RedMaterialist]

If you weren't aware, since the financial crash and the election of a conservative-led coalition government, a lot of shit has been going down in the UK.



I read on the BBC website today that in the UK there are very severe restrictions on striking by unions. They would never be allowed to do what they are doing in France. We have the same problem in the U.S., although with the difference that our Congress is more proportionally representative than your Parliament.

My suggestion is that you change your laws on striking and on proportional representation. Then you could, as they say in the U.S., "throw the bastards out."

How to change your laws? Organize.

[Hen]

I read on the BBC website today that in the UK there are very severe restrictions on striking by unions. They would never be allowed to do what they are doing in France. We have the same problem in the U.S., although with the difference that our Congress is more proportionally representative than your Parliament.

My suggestion is that you change your laws on striking and on proportional representation. Then you could, as they say in the U.S., "throw the bastards out."

How to change your laws? Organize.

There have been protests, thousands of demonstrators in London and across the UK. It's not nearly as widespread as it should be though. Most people think the spending cuts are a good thing. It will supposedly clean up the bureaucratic mess of the last government. Having read some examples of bureaucratic waste...I can get on board with some of this. However, I feel much of it is being used as an excuse to implement Thatcher's historic mission in the UK - shrinking government and use economic growth to cloak the greater inequalities. The gap between the rich and poor has grown 10% since Major's government in 1997. This ideological shift to the right will widen the gap further, and more rapidly.

[ed miliband]

I read on the BBC website today that in the UK there are very severe restrictions on striking by unions. They would never be allowed to do what they are doing in France. We have the same problem in the U.S., although with the difference that our Congress is more proportionally representative than your Parliament.

And look where that has got you...


My suggestion is that you change your laws on striking and on proportional representation. Then you could, as they say in the U.S., "throw the bastards out."

How to change your laws? Organize.

Or how about rather than organising to change laws we organise to actually change society? I think that's a better option. We don't want to "throw the bastards out" to replace them with another group of bastards.

[ed miliband]

If you weren't aware, since the financial crash and the election of a conservative-led coalition government, a lot of shit has been going down in the UK.

There has been a widespread review of government spending in all ministries, and in a bid to eradicate wasteful spending and cut the deficit, there has been MASSIVE cuts. Some people say it is justified. The deficit really is that big, and the government warn of Greece-type scenario occurring in the UK should the deficit not be dealt with. Other people say it is ideologically driven - shrinking government and leaving the recovery to the private sector. Supporters say that despite the nature of the market, the private sector is a wealth generator that stimulates economic growth and raises the collective standard of living. Obviously, writing in revleft shows that I think this is bullshit. I have no faith in the private sector. However, writing in the learning section shows that I do need help convincing those who have faith in the private sector...

This is quite a good article: http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/are-the-cuts-necessary-and-does-it-matter/


Of course..I have posed wage slavery and the alienation of labour to the unconvinced. I am often shot down by numbing arguments such as 'that's life'.

Saying 'that's life' implies that the suffering caused by capitalism is a naturally occuring phenomenon that has always existed and will exist forevermore, for all human beings. We know this isn't true. As human beings we have created society and we have the power to change it.

[Revolution starts with U]

I want to help, what can I do?

[PoliticalNightmare]

Of course..I have posed wage slavery and the alienation of labour to the unconvinced. I am often shot down by numbing arguments such as 'that's life'.

"Things have got to get a lot tougher before they get better"

"Well what do you propose we do? Carry on spending?"

etc.

Haha. I just remind these people that the monarchy gets £53mil a year (although I've heard the Queen took a pay cut or something? Still the establishment as a whole takes a fair bit of money) and politicians still get their expenses covered, top civil servants still get paid and we're still funding a pointless war in Agahnistan (most British citizens feel strongly patriotic about their beloved soldiers but oddly enough don't seem to give a toss about the everyday child that gets killed in Afgahnistan).

Basically these cuts aren't that necessary otherwise they'd be going in those places as well. Essentially, they are, as you pointed out just part of an ongoing ideological row for a "smaller" government, etc.

Best of luck, comrade, we are going to need it living in such a conservative place as Britain where Margaret Thatcher is still an idol amongst most workers (lets face it).

[ed miliband]

Best of luck, comrade, we are going to need it living in such a conservative place as Britain where Margaret Thatcher is still an idol amongst most workers (lets face it).

The idea that Thatcher is "an idol amongst most workers" is actually nuts. Do you mean to tell me you've encountered workers who have told you they view Thatcher as an idol? 'Cos if so I genuinely don't believe you. She may not be as disliked as you or I might wish, but she certainly isn't an idol. Very much the opposite in a great deal of communities.

[PoliticalNightmare]

The idea that Thatcher is "an idol amongst most workers" is actually nuts. Do you mean to tell me you've encountered workers who have told you they view Thatcher as an idol? 'Cos if so I genuinely don't believe you. She may not be as disliked as you or I might wish, but she certainly isn't an idol. Very much the opposite in a great deal of communities.

Most workers I've spoken to say she made the country better. Perhaps I should not speak from own personal experience when saying 'most workers like Maggy' or whatever but people were certainly going on about the 'Iron Lady' and shit like that when she invaded the Fawklands.

Edit - anyway my point was that Britain, from what I can see, on the whole is fairly conservative. A lot see the everflowing sea of immigrants as being detrimental to British culture and all that. They think the "nanny state" supports some people too much.

I don't know.

[PoliticalNightmare]

I want to help, what can I do?

Create communism. NOW!! :D

[Arlekino]

We all left wingers selling papers, spreading information about cuts, but I disappointed because working class are ignorant and I don't blame them I blame system media, DailyMail or Sun. Is crap and is difficult to mobilise workers when on BBC ~Business agenda some stupid stock and shares which I believe working class even don't have a clue what they are talking but we portending we know. If you ask worker about Exfactor, Coronation Street, Eastenders we can get good answers but is that time to ask back. Do you know who is Karl Marx, Lenin, Mao doubt we could get good answer. Is H. G. Well right humanity need to re- educate which I thought is important but question is how to do this when on shoulders are right wing propoganda.

[PoliticalNightmare]

Well right humanity need to re- educate which I thought is important but question is how to do this when on shoulders are right wing propoganda.

Fight populism with populism, I say!

[Arlekino]

I can't see good light for workers, as a worker need re-educate which is hard job is like smashing or burning something which myself don't understand how to do it. Simple for worker need job, community, food and security and seems they are waiting somebody will do for them.

[PoliticalNightmare]

I can't see good light for workers, as a worker need re-educate which is hard job is like smashing or burning something which myself don't understand how to do it. Simple for worker need job, community, food and security and seems they are waiting somebody will do for them.

Ah, this seems like an argument for anarcho-syndicalism.

Worker's trade unions and organisations may be set up under present day society to help the workers get along with life and provide an embodiment for society after the revolution. I'm thinking along the lines of Spain 1936.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I read on the BBC website today that in the UK there are very severe restrictions on striking by unions. They would never be allowed to do what they are doing in France. We have the same problem in the U.S., although with the difference that our Congress is more proportionally representative than your Parliament.

My suggestion is that you change your laws on striking and on proportional representation. Then you could, as they say in the U.S., "throw the bastards out."

How to change your laws? Organize.

Are you actually saying that the us system of two-parties is more proportionatley representing the populace than the multi-party parliamentary system of the uk?

[ed miliband]

We all left wingers selling papers, spreading information about cuts, but I disappointed because working class are ignorant and I don't blame them I blame system media, DailyMail or Sun. Is crap and is difficult to mobilise workers when on BBC ~Business agenda some stupid stock and shares which I believe working class even don't have a clue what they are talking but we portending we know. If you ask worker about Exfactor, Coronation Street, Eastenders we can get good answers but is that time to ask back. Do you know who is Karl Marx, Lenin, Mao doubt we could get good answer. Is H. G. Well right humanity need to re- educate which I thought is important but question is how to do this when on shoulders are right wing propoganda.

To 'explain' the failure of left-wing movements by pointing to the media is completely inadequate and ultimately results in vesting in ideas the power to dominate material conditions, over and above economic facts. The working class aren't going to become socialists because cadres stopped them from buying the Sun or the Daily Mail and watching TV; there will not be a sudden outburst of class conciousness and an increase in purchases of Quotations from Chairman Mao (thank fuck for that). Quite the opposite will happen, and rightly so.

And there is a lot to be offended by in your post. Talking of working class people as ignorant automatons who only watch reality TV and soaps and need to be "re-educated" is just as bad as anything that might be found on the pages of the Sun or the Mail.

[Arlekino]

Because of my lack of perfect English I could not explained better way. I am not against working class at all, the system is wrong that so I meant, the division of working class providing perfect opportunity of right wing media.

[Hen]

Rasyte makes a valid point if you consider "opium for the masses" in terms of the Adorno and Horkheimer's Culture Industry, or Parenti's bourgeois use of racism to divide the working classes against one another. There are distractions that conceal the economic facts. This is not to say that the working class are a bunch of "ignorant automatons", but I know that if the mainstream media stopped pretending that there are 'no alternatives to capitalism' then we'd have a whole load of revolutionary recruits on our hands.

[JanModaal]

I wouldn't be surprised if Thatcher was still popular among the working class of the UK. The working class is increasingly becoming more conservative and right wing, the reasons for this are obvious:

A - They like the tough position on crime of the conservative right (none of that soft rehabilitation crap coming from the left)

B - They like the tough anti-immigration rhetoric of the right (instead of the shiny happy "can't we all just get along" idea of the left)

C - Mostly through propaganda they have been convinced that government services are bureaucratic, inefficient and that proper economic growth will come via deregulation, free market, bla bla bla.

The Welfare State is no longer seen a positive achievement of democracy, but rather as charity for the lazy and specifically catering to annoying foreigners that they can't identify with or like.

And thus, they vote right wing.....

It's the same story everywhere, even here in Holland, in the face of an economic crisis brought on through free market capitalism, they have voted in the most right-wing cabinet in history.

Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc. - They are all conservative right wingers!

This is what's popular these days.

The answer of the left can only come either populism (i.e. a left-wing government that's socialist in terms of economics/politics, but in terms of immigration and crime caters more to the wishes of the public) or a further breakdown of society through the escalating economic crash that will force people to reconsider their political/economic stance.