The Left: Moribund.

[french frank]

[An initial cull of off-topic messages has been diverted here. More may follow.]

[Flosshilde]

If you looked at a map you would see that St Paul's is in the financial district, in close proximity to the London Stock Exchange

(see: http://www.paternosterlondon.co.uk/g...roduction.html).

Not only that, but areas at the centre of the 'financial district' which are, ostensibly, public, are in fact privately owned & can, and do, take out injunctions to prevent protests taking place there. Paternoster Square, just by St Paul's, for example, & Broadgate & Exchange Square. The number of truly public open spaces within the City of London is very small.

The Occupy and other 'anti-capitalist' movements have all been about protest: they (think they) know what they're against but as far as I can make out, they have no idea what they are for, unless it's for some generalised idea of a 'fairer' society: how thatsociety is to be achieved, what laws will govern it and how it will be regulated don't seem to be things that have ever occurred to them.

I believe that they have, after extensive discussion, come up with some proposals and suggestions. (see here for example - http://occupylsx.org/?p=1526). However, Mandryka doesn't, I think, accept that there can ever be any alternative not just to the policies of the present government (&, unfortunately, of the opposition) but also to the way government is managed.

[ahinton]

the thing about the cabinet..was a throwaway.

Indeed - you wrote about getting rid of them. Yes.

I wouldn't refrain from generalising about the super rich. Tax them all at 60 %, if they stay fine, if they go good riddance.

Then you make a grave error, since their source of "riches" is not common to them all. Some of them might leave and take their jobs for those that work for them with them. I assume that, by "60%", you mean that percentage above a certain threshold, like eveyone else; 60%, however, is not so much more that quite a few people already pay here who are by no means rich, let alone super-rich - 40% income tax, 21+% employers'/employees' NIC, on top of other taxes...

They always tell us how indispensible they are. but they aren't. they live off other peoples hard work.

Most of them don't tell us that at all. In any case, many people who aren't rich or super-rich live off other people's hard work as well as their own; people can't just work in some kind of vacuum irrespective of the work that others do.

Example: footballer earns 50k a week. Who pays for this? me through the turnstiles, other people through sky subs, all paid for by OUR hard work.

Not by mine, either via turnstiles or Sky subs! (matter of choice and all that)...

[ahinton]

The Occupy and other 'anti-capitalist' movements have all been about protest: they (think they) know what they're against but as far as I can make out, they have no idea what they are for, unless it's for some generalised idea of a 'fairer' society: how thatsociety is to be achieved, what laws will govern it and how it will be regulated don't seem to be things that have ever occurred to them.

I thought the choice of St. Paul's as a venue for occupation was very strange. At least in America they attempted to occupy a financial district.

Outrage doesn't constitute a policy.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I'm sure that there are some among all those protesters that have ideas, but the movement itself (insofar as it appears to be one) seems not to have a series of possible alternatives to consider.

[ahinton]

The way I read "The big society", is to get people to do for free what other people currently get paid for.(check out you local library, if its not been boarded up). This will put the people that need a job out of work, but the 50p tax rate can be abolished, which is the important thing.

Thats about it, isn't it?

Er - no. Read the book with that title and then tell us what you think it's about.

[Lateralthinking1]

The Big Society Network Limited, 50 Broadway, SW1 - Company number: 07201756

The Big Society Network Foundation- A Charity - Registered number: 1141518

"Unleashing Social Energy"

"Social Energy is the positive energy that comes from spending time in a stimulating environment with other people"

No you don't say! Sell another book!

Nat Wei - The Big Society Czar (12 Feb - reported as reducing his time commitment to this work)

"Big Society is my Mission" says Cameron - "The People are the Boss"

London Borough of Sutton - one of four vanguard areas for barrier busting

Thebigsociety.co.uk - http://thebigsociety.co.uk/

"We are currently tweaking our website, please bear with us, we'll be fully up and running again shortly. In the meantime please enjoy our new look, range of projects and programmes and do get in touch for further information".

What an absolute load of TRIPE!

[Lateralthinking1]

......and why is it here at all, albeit as nothing more than a half-arsed play about? Not because of any wholeheartedness but a party political need to counter this from 31 October 1987:

"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation."

Margaret Thatcher

Woman's Own Magazine

(Plus point - It is plainly nonsense, with some provisos, and written in poor English but at least there isn't a whiff of Californian)

[Lateralthinking1]

Steve Hilton, Architect of The Big Society:

On 7 January 2010 it was reported that in October 2008 Hilton had been arrested. He had been rushing to catch a train back to London after the Conservative Party Conference and got into a dispute with the train staff, which resulted in the police being called. Hilton was arrested and taken to a British Transport Police station at Birmingham New Street, where he was issued with a penalty notice and a criminal record for disorder under section 5 of the Public Order Act.

Hilton has been reported by The Guardian as coming up with the following "ideas":

Abolition of maternity leave
Abolition of all consumer rights legislation
Ignore EU labour rules on temporary workers
Close job centres (work is currently being undertaken to require future Jobseekers to sign on online)
Use cloudbursting technology to provide more sunshine
Require OAPs to work as scarecrows on farmland

Well, actually all but the last one. I made that one up.

(If the left is moribund, is the right round the twist?)

[ahinton]

No one seems to have mentoned the book yet. And I'm not talking Scott H Young here.

[amateur51]

The Occupy and other 'anti-capitalist' movements have all been about protest: they (think they) know what they're against but as far as I can make out, they have no idea what they are for, unless it's for some generalised idea of a 'fairer' society: how thatsociety is to be achieved, what laws will govern it and how it will be regulated don't seem to be things that have ever occurred to them.

I thought the choice of St. Paul's as a venue for occupation was very strange. At least in America they attempted to occupy a financial district.

Outrage doesn't constitute a policy.

St Paul's was the closest they were allowed to get to the Stock Exchange, I think

Edit: Ooops sorry, subcontrabass, you'd already mentioned this

[John Skelton]

The Big Society Network Limited, 50 Broadway, SW1 - Company number: 07201756 Thebigsociety.co.uk - http://thebigsociety.co.uk/

"We are currently tweaking our website, please bear with us, we'll be fully up and running again shortly. In the meantime please enjoy our new look, range of projects and programmes and do get in touch for further information".

Thanks for the link, Lateralthinking. Via their Twitter feed here is this ... tweeted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcvKZhuowWk&feature=share

"... and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation ...." Margaret Thatcher, 'Woman's Own' interview (1987).

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852).

[ahinton]

I wonder whether Ms Streep sorry I mean Mrs Thatcher has lived to rue the day that she spoke as quoted in that interview?! In much more recent times, the "there's no such thing as The Big Society" joke has long since run its course, of course. To return to her statement, however, the greatest trouble with it is that it's not even all incorrect. What I think is of value in it is her implied drawing of attention to the idea that we shouldn't expect too much of government as though it's somehow going to sort out all our ills and woes, as though that is its bounden duty and is all that we elect it to do. To my mind, government's only rôle in this regard should concentrate on sorting out those particular ills and woes that it has itself imposed upon us; that alone should give it more than enough to do! Yes, there should be no sense of entitlement without one of obligation, just as there can be no rights without responsibilities. The utterly nonsensical part of her assertion here is, of course, the bit for which she's best (I mean worst) remembered - i.e. that there's no such thing as society; such a bizarre notion does not even accord to the rest of what she said here because, if there really were no such thing as society, how could anone expect anyone even to know his/her neighbour (in the Biblical sense in which I assume her to have used the term), let alone to help look after said neighbour? Taking care of the interests of others presumes the existence of something called a society. Yes, of course we're all individuals, but that's precisely what society is made of - individuals. Likewise, the very notion of give and take implicit in Mrs Thatcher's remarks also presumes the existence of a society. Finally, her remark reveals just how little she appeared to know or care about how humanity works.

Whilst I broadly agree with Tony Benn's assessment of Mr Thatcher as someone of the utmost integrity whose word you could trust and whose deeds accorded to her words, what Mr Benn omitted to add (at least as far as I am aware) is that her possession and pursuit of such integrity failed to prevent her from delivering gaffes such as the one above; she may as well, on another occasion, have said "you turn if you want to; the lady's too busy putting her foot in her mouth".

While on the subject of absent additions, Marx's criticism of Hegel that you quote above wasn't actually quite correct (the criticism itself, I mean - not your quotation of it!); whilst he was right to point out that Hegel forgot to add something and he had an idea of what it was, what he should actually have added was "the first time as both tragedy and farce, the second time as both farce and tragedy" - although I openly admit that this trips off the tongue a good deal less well.

[John Skelton]

In fact no one has been able to track down where Hegel 'remarked' that . Unlike the data and statistics in Das Kapital, which Marx scrupulously referenced, the attribution remains a bit of a mystery. Sorry, off-topic.

[amateur51]

Agreed wholeheartedly. I'm sure that there are some among all those protesters that have ideas, but the movement itself (insofar as it appears to be one) seems not to have a series of possible alternatives to consider.

I'd guess that the UK 'movement' has been inspired both by 'Occupy Wall Street' and by 'Indigniez-Vous' by Stéphane Hessell which was linked to the Facebook/twitter revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/09/25/stephane-hessel-s-indignez-vous-inspires-protesters.html

That we don't know what their plans are may be as much to do with our Media's priorities as it is to do with the protestors' apparent lack of a plan?

[ahinton]

In fact no one has been able to track down where Hegel 'remarked' that . Unlike the data and statistics in Das Kapital, which Marx scrupulously referenced, the attribution remains a bit of a mystery. Sorry, off-topic.

No, I know, but we do at least have Marx's comment on it and it wasn't especially off-topic to my mind in any case.