The Entire Political System -- Is it Irredeemably Fucked?

I lost interest in politics a long time ago. Hmm, that’s probably not entirely true. Better to say that I lost faith in the current system of politics a long time ago. If I had no interest at all, I wouldn’t still care about how fucked up everything is, would I?

We as a nation-state still seem to be fixated on some ancient perspective that says Conservatives are Right Wing, Labour is Left, and Liberals represent some wishy-washy centre-ground somewhere in between. But in truth, it seems to me that in our current age, both major parties are right of centre. There is no longer a real choice between “right” and “left” anymore. And even if there was, it would still be too linear. Like saying that everyone on the left would agree on broadly the same policies and general direction.

As I learnt a while ago, when a friend introduced me to the many varying online political ideology tests, just how many different flavours there are on both sides of the central divide, so many in fact that a single right/left axis is not sufficient, and that at least one further vertical axis needs to run alongside that horizontal one to more accurately reflect a wider range of views and ideologies. But how far do you take that, and where does it all stop before fragmenting into utter confusion?

The next issue for me, is the incredibly powerful influence of the corporate media (both print and broadcast) on people’s perception of politics. To the extent that the ‘coverage’ (if you can call it that) makes it inevitable that only one of two parties have any realistic chance of winning an election – and in recent times, a high likelihood that in order for one of them to do so, they will need the help of the not entirely impotent third party in order to actualy form a government.

The point, is choice – or rather, the lack of it. Sure, on the surface, there is choice, but when that “choice” is between two parties, neither of which have ever convinced that they are in any way capable of effectively, professionally, and honestly running a country for the good of the people – then what real choice is that?

I would suggest it is merely the illusion of choice, and that essentially – politics (the way it is currently set up), is simply a puppet show for grown-ups.

Which ever party “wins”, the same band of obscenely wealthy controlling “puppeteers” will be pulling the strings from behind the scenes. So is politics simply the method of distraction used to effectively “divide and conquer” us, whilst we argue amongst ourselves endlessly over which puppet on which hand is less bad than the other, all the while oblivious to the fact that ultimately, the same dude has his hand shoved up the arses of both of them?

Everyday that I open my curtains in the morning, feels like another step toward 1984. :lou_facepalm_2:

So, is the entire political system utterly fucked, and flawed beyond redemption? If not, then why not? And if so, what, if anything, can we do about this monstrocity?

Inspire me… :lou_eyes_to_sky:

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Yep.

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Only a small band control who is in, so the parties fight for that vote, as a Nation whether we like to admit it or not we are centre ground/right, we have no revolutions or huge mass strikes BUT thats the beauty of it and the appeal, the boring but steady nature leads to investment and stability on the whole.

The electoral system is broken and needs to be fixed, democracy doesn’t work in the sense of first past the post.

No expenses, lobbying, can be voted out whilst in office and parliamentary privilege are things that should change and obviously electoral reform as well.

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They’re all cunts. Get yourself down the pub.

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It’s shameful that only 63 people hold on to more more wealth than half of the world. It’s not shameful it’s obscene.4

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You can expect a proposal from Pap at any moment.

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Politicians don’t have much influence

I made up the 63 people number, so thats not true. But read something similar, recently

it’s 62, Ted. Get your facts right instead of making up numbers to suit your agenda.

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Hey Fatman, according to my survey 87 people didn’t like your last message

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Again made that up, judging by the “likes”

I’m sorry Ted.

No worries, mate.

75 per cent of people, paid more tax than google inc

I am one of 25% then :lou_lol:

Crikey. I could have written most of that post. I have a huge amount of agreement with it, particularly as recent reading has included Owen Jones’ The Establishment; And How They Get Away with it, as much a history of neo-liberalism in the last 40 years as a who’s who of who got rich.

Despite the depressing history of media collusion, bought and paid for politicians, privatisation, deregulation and loss of public wealth we’ve all endured, something about his account, and indeed other world events, is that things can and do change.

Thatcher was considered a nutter by the majority of her party. Her ideas were perceived as batshit insane, and she was seen as an electoral liability. Between them, she and Reagan redefined what “common sense economics” meant.

Jones makes the point that as soon as economists stop singing from the neo-liberal hymn sheet, they’re seen as at best, eccentric, and at worst, bloody nutters. The way people are going on about Corbyn, you’d think he was about to re-introduce gladiatorial combat, when he’s actually suggesting going to models that has worked for us, and still works elsewhere.

The hope is of course, that things can change. And they can. Soviet control must have seemed like an ongoing inevitability to those under its power. It seemed so to us, and yet the world changed in 1989, very suddenly. The truth was that the Soviet regime had been crumbling for decades; they just managed to get their media to create the right impression, cumulatively taking on all the faults that would cause the eventual structure to collapse.

Neo-liberalism is forty years old and has arguably already failed as a practical ideology. The theory was that we’d live in a world of private companies dutifully competing against each other, with efficiency guaranteed because of that competition. Instead we’ve seen cartels and monopolies and a coalescing of wealth into a few hands, house prices zooming up to 6x-10x the average salary. It’s no more permanent than Soviet “communism”. Many of its pillars are crumbling. There will be a point when it is no longer tenable.

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I have huge problem with party politics.

First, the concept is flawed. No two people agree with everything so trying to create a system based on a conjoined set of beliefs and principles is a game of how little can we agree on and still pretend we’re singing from the same sheet.

Second it creates disproportionate representation. If there’s only a choice of a few, most will plump for one of the big two simply because they feel their vote will mean more.

That links to my third point. It creates tribalism. Look to the US and you’ll see the extreme end of party politics. Each side pushing further away from the other because they don’t want to be the other side. This also makes it easy to blame the other guy in any given circumstance (‘thanks obama’ is said in jest but has basis in truth).

What irks me most about politics is that conciliation and compromise are dirty words to describe the weak willed when simply put, they should be the basis of our government.

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Sometimes the like button just isn’t enough!

Some brilliant posts on this thread - Kingdom Come’s, in particular, sums up the way I feel about politics at the moment.

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To be fair to our politicians, many of them do spend an awful lot of time in select committees, which are not as adversarial as the barracking that you see in the Commons or years of on-message, ideologically driven soundbites parroted out by any aspiring politician on the box.

I think a lot of it is hardwired in. Since the moment our democracy spluttered into being, those in power have always sought to limit the power of the franchise. You might look at the expansion of those that are able to vote and say that the franchise has actually increased, but other factors, such as the winner takes all electoral system, means that governments can usually be as adversarial as they like, and millions are feeling like they have no political voice.

They used to say that one of the dangers of PR was that it allowed smaller parties to disproportionately dictate terms in any power-sharing deal. I don’t think it’s as dangerous as people make out; the senior party in the proposed coalition has the whip hand and can always negotiate with someone else. I can see the validity of the argument in Major’s day, but since then, we’ve had something arguably more dangerous.

Small powerful cabals, often with their roots in the English public school system and the Oxbridge universities, taking control of their parties and bullying them into submission. Blair did it with the left-wingers. The Conservatives are presently engaged in multiple bullying rows now.

Maybe PR ain’t so bad.

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Being of scientific bent, I am unable to express my opinion on this as eloquent prose as some of those above… but to offer a different slant, I dont believe there has been any ‘shift’, but that suggest the system has always been fucked.

I suspect that even from the early days of Tories, Whigs and eventually Liberals, none of these fuckers have ever been truely ‘servants’ to the country/people which is what they should be. Many, especially today are career politicians - that eventually use these positions in Westminster to secure other more lucrative directorships and positions.

The early socialists were probably the last ‘politicians’ that were looking to right a fundemental wrong. Slums and work houses, poor pay and conditions, lack of any social care or social justice etc… the real philosophical problem that I have with this, is that I dont see support of such basic principles as a political one… but as part of what it is to be a decent human being.

Biologically we are an altrusitic spieces having evolved our compassion, love and other emotions as a result of reproductive success with 'communities (Bearsy this is not about shagging, but about survival of of offspring to reproduce themselves) yet still retain the charateristics (more prevalent in some) of the more competitive phenotype… believing that their career and monetary success gives them alpha male/female status… some fall for such misguided shite…

Now, I have nothing against the ideas of innovation and entrepeneurial success - but it’s what drives this, how it is acheived and what is done when its achieved taht is important

Greed is bad… following ideas and challenges is good

If the motivation is simply the accumulation of wealth then this is merely ignorant IMHO (not to be confused with normal folk wanting to improve their lot a bit, but real greed - the type that says 50 mil is not enough…) and these are so often the same twats who will then look to dodge paying taxes etc.

Acheiving this wealth on the back of exploiting workers with poor pay and conditions is the other main issue… sounds simple does it not… but the only real reason for doing this is greed…

Greed is not unique to any party and like compassion is not a political stance… but a human one, one of which is fundemental flaw - a signal of lack of evolutionary progress …

So in a nutshell, I have never been comfortable with political labels. There are few in any party that are doing it truly to serve their communities and country… but given that the left has at least made an effort to include what I consdier fundemental humanitarian issues in their policies, I have naturally been more aligned with their thinking.

In addition, my other gripe is that there seems to be a real inertia within the voting public to support any party shifting from their ‘fundemental principles’… and this has to be the biggest load of bollocks within our system. All the parties principles were set up in another age… we still had an empire to exploit FFS…and poor peope still ended up in workhouses… yes there is still a big (and getting bigger divide) divides between the haves and have nots, but is it really wrong to expect parties to evolve with time? Why do voters have such an issue when parties look to make a shift to reflect more modern global economics etc? the Media being full of mock outrage when they do…

Ultimately, politics should all be about common sense and what is best for ALL the people. You may not please all the people all of the time, but you should be able to SERVE them.

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