State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[Flosshilde]

Inducing the young to resent their elders isn't. I've asked already - what could a government hope to gain by it?

'It isn't our fault - it's all the fault of older people who are grabbing the money through their bus passes, heating allowances, pensions etc' which is a theme promoted by government speeches & thye press. Just as 'austerity' isn't the fault of the present government, or the bankers, but Labour.

[teamsaint]

'It isn't our fault - it's all the fault of older people who are grabbing the money through their bus passes, heating allowances, pensions etc' which is a theme promoted by government speeches & thye press. Just as 'austerity' isn't the fault of the present government, or the bankers, but Labour.

which, incidentally , is one of the most bare faced lies in history .

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/uk-public-spending-1963

but it doesn't stop this government using it.

[P. G. Tipps]

'It isn't our fault - it's all the fault of older people who are grabbing the money through their bus passes, heating allowances, pensions etc' which is a theme promoted by government speeches & thye press. Just as 'austerity' isn't the fault of the present government, or the bankers, but Labour.

Yes we know you're not a huge fan of the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Bankers, Flossie, but we're all keen to know what your expanded view is regarding the state of the parties as the 2015 Election looms ... ?

[Risorgimento]

Yes we know you're not a huge fan of the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Bankers, Flossie, but we're all keen to know what your expanded view is regarding the state of the parties as the 2015 Election looms ... ?

He has none. Whinge...negative post...whinge...negative post..it's just the same old...same old...[yawn emoticon]

[teamsaint]

Do 'we'? The SNP's first government in Scotland was a minority one - they didn't enter into a coalition with anyone, but got support for individual bills/policies from whichever party they could do a deal with. On economic matters that tended to be the Tories, on social matter Labour. I think if they hold a balance of power in Westminster they will follow much the same principle - not enter into a formal coalition but support, & influence, the policies they want.

This is Floss's last post before the one quoted by PGT.

Looks pretty on topic, and adding some useful thoughts to the debate .

Unlike the last post, #814.

[Serial_Apologist]

Basically, the problems of governments of today trying to choose unweildy options to please various demographics can be ascribed to the uncontrollability of capitalism following 35 years in increasing deregulation and globalisation. They knew all this back in the 1930s when News Dealism was the class compromise that would offer post WW2 Europe and America the longest period of mostly peacable growth in historical memory if you conveniently ignore racism, homophobia and wars of national liberation. Giving the break down on how all this pans out regarding the resulting resentments of this versus that group tends to vary from chaotic situation to ditto, with little of a handle beyond the next crisis for the commentariat (now including the ineluctable Thereas May it seems) to get its atomised head around. The issue of who is to blame, like most of the contributions to this thread, ignores the underlying systemic dysfunctionality underlying all the various "insoluble" problems, and their unamenability to resolution given the consequences of the power relations at stake on the thinking about them.

In the olden days the balance of class relations (especially the existence of strong organised working classes) meant someone not immediately affected, but affected in the long run in trading terms and in full recognition of this, like the US under Roosevelt, had enough inbuilt stability and vestigial integrity to come to the rescue like the Fifth Cavalry symbolised, but as people who question the politics of class have pointed out, that surplus value-creating working class, which could objectively take over the planning and running of everything if it put its collective mind to how to, has been replaced by robotic technology making one man/woman with a keyboard nth thousands of times more productive than a Fordist production line ca 1930 but n to the 500th times less powerful because s/he has a mortage, and they have a back up.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that humanity's problems are as much "spiritual" as political because it's for want of a better word the alienated spiritual that prevents him or her gaining a perspective to get a handle on that will see us and our world differently and eventually healable. And religion is, if anything, right in the way.

Sorry to be so pessimistic - but this is how you start seeing things when you realise just how little ones hopes for everyone, not just or even oneself, have advanced since beginning to think and act on these matters, and just how many years remain in which to see any glimmer of wisdom from more than a tiny number of people who never get the time of day in the marketplace of ideas within the mainstream media, let alone practical, brave people of charisma and principles who can win mass hearts, and minds.

[Richard Barrett]

That is it in a nutshell as far as I can see. I don't entirely share the pessimism though.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that humanity's problems are as much "spiritual" as political because it's for want of a better word the alienated spiritual that prevents him or her gaining a perspective to get a handle on that will see us and our world differently and eventually healable. And religion is, if anything, right in the way

... being "the false expression of real needs denied by class society", as someone once said. He also of course said that the consciousness you're talking about would arise from the class struggle itself. The automation you also talk about was supposed to be something which would free people of the necessity to work as much as previously, but clearly what has happened instead is a massive expansion of what David Graeber rightly calls "bullshit jobs" - rather than [technology] allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones. As for the atomisation of the working class, that may be more of a "first world problem". The change in consciousness may come from elsewhere and by some mechanism we haven't even recognised as such yet, if I can be allowed a brief flight of fancy, but in Edward Bond's words "clutching at straws is the only rational thing to do."

[P. G. Tipps]

That is it in a nutshell as far as I can see. I don't entirely share the pessimism though.

... being "the false expression of real needs denied by class society", as someone once said. He also of course said that the consciousness you're talking about would arise from the class struggle itself. The automation you also talk about was supposed to be something which would free people of the necessity to work as much as previously, but clearly what has happened instead is a massive expansion of what David Graeber rightly calls "bullshit jobs" - rather than [technology] allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones. As for the atomisation of the working class, that may be more of a "first world problem". The change in consciousness may come from elsewhere and by some mechanism we haven't even recognised as such yet, if I can be allowed a brief flight of fancy, but in Edward Bond's words "clutching at straws is the only rational thing to do."

What has all this weird, dreamy quasi-religious Marxist stuff (hardly 'a brief flight of fancy'!) got to do with the state of the parties as the 2015 General Election looms ...?

[MrGongGong]

What has all this weird, dreamy quasi-religious Marxist stuff (hardly 'a brief flight of fancy'!) got to do with the state of the parties as the 2015 General Election looms ...?

What this comment epitomises IMV is the whole "anti thought" idea. Don't think too much as it will make your brain ache and it's only "quasi-religious Marxist stuff" anyway, just get your head down and take things as they are.

This

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that humanity's problems are as much "spiritual" as political because it's for want of a better word the alienated spiritual that prevents him or her gaining a perspective to get a handle on that will see us and our world differently and eventually healable. And religion is, if anything, right in the way

Is a good analysis.
Unless people in politics actually start to think about wider things than self-interest we really are doomed.

[P. G. Tipps]

What this comment epitomises IMV is the whole "anti thought" idea.

No, IMV, it's simply the whole 'getting back on topic' idea ...

[Richard Barrett]

What has all this weird, dreamy quasi-religious Marxist stuff (hardly 'a brief flight of fancy'!) got to do with the state of the parties as the 2015 General Election looms ...?

I would have thought it was obvious. One of the reasons we have to put up with all the UKIP nonsense is that the main parties are clearly not addressing the most important issues, not just the parochial ones but the global ones, instead inventing fears and anxieties which might just be small enough for them to address without upsetting the neoliberal applecart, like "mass immigration" etc. etc. - the "state of the parties" is a state of small-minded denial. Does that make sense to you now? (some hope, I know)

[Beef Oven!]

What has all this weird, dreamy quasi-religious Marxist stuff (hardly 'a brief flight of fancy'!) got to do with the state of the parties as the 2015 General Election looms ...?

It has little to do with the anything, IMV. By the 21 century, we have come to understand that Marxist analysis, with its materialist conception of history and arm-chair sub-theories like the alienation of labour, should be considered as an intellectual fad. Universal rejection as a basis of government, incomplete as a foundation for social policy and irrelevant politically, all that's left for those that can't let go, is romantic pessimism; an emotional clutching at straws, IMV.

[Beef Oven!]

It's clear that immigration will be a salient issue in the 2015 general election, but what else?
Constitutional issues such as more devolution for Scotland and Wales? An English parliament? Important issues, but the question is, does the electorate think so?

[P. G. Tipps]

Does that make sense to you now? (some hope, I know)

No, it makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

You have yet again promulgated your views on the "evils" of modern capitalism. I've widely promulgated my views on the "evils" of modern 'political correctness'.

I've since accepted the charge that my views on the latter could be deemed 'off-topic' though I do think this is one of the main reasons for UKIP's poll success in being the only party that is largely free from it, however much I may strongly disagree with its main policy planks.

I don't think your view of the world has had any bearing on the 'state of the parties as 2015 General Election' looms but, even if it has, it is certainly no more 'on-topic' than mine!

That has been the one and only point made in my recent posts.

[agingjb]

I suspect that theories of Marx are happily endorsed by some on the right, who see a recipe for continued exploitation by avoiding the revolt of the masses.