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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Frankly any right thinking person in the global economy knows that the USA must have a period of the democrats in power. Since the whole spectrum has shifted to the right, the democrats are now pretty right wing anyway.
This does not mirror the situation in the UK where Labour poses as middle of the road, but is as left wing as it ever was. Here we need the Conservatives in power again, peppered with Labour in power to curb Tory excesses. Thatcherism must never again take hold.
We need to look at human rights track records. Right wing is anti anyone who is different, but left wing ain't so hot either. And can anyone tell me why the heck we are in Iraq anyway?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Yes, Timmy,
if the republicans get in again by not registering black and poor voters it would be a disaster for democracy.
But I disagree with you about the UK. 'New Labour' is fully as right wing as conservative Harold Macmillan and its pusillanimity is shown by its having a 'target' to eliminate child poverty by 2012. Turn that on its head and say "We are going to go on tolerating 30% of our children being brought up in poverty for at least another four years." Does that sound left wing to you?
In my view the conservatives ARE in power! What we need (all countries need) is a periodical peaceful
change of government and a way to stop it riding roughshod over the opposition when it doesn't have the support of the people. Thatcher, for example introducing the poll tax (which caused such outrage that she had to withdraw it - of course it was a big transfer of the burden of taxation from the rich to the poor) and privatising the railways in a dishonest and organisationally incompetent way that is still causing problems.
I think the answer to roughshod riding may be proportional representation.
I think that the party of social justice may be the LibDems (but Nick Clegg is doing his best to persuade me otherwise. He shouldn't be promising tax cuts!)
And the reason we are in Iraq is that an increasingly unpopular Blair thought that going into a war to support the USA and secure oil supplies would have the effect wars always have and increase the popularity of the government because all loyal citizens are presumed to support their own nation in any war. Just think what the Falklands did for Thatcher!
Love,
Anthony
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acam wrote:
(snip)
> But I disagree with you about the UK. 'New Labour' is fully as right wing as conservative Harold Macmillan and its pusillanimity is shown by its having a 'target' to eliminate child poverty by 2012. Turn that on its head and say "We are going to go on tolerating 30% of our children being brought up in poverty for at least another four years." Does that sound left wing to you?
I'd very much agree with you, Anthony. A party that this year *lowered* take-home pay for the very lowest-earning by increasing income tax, while *increasing* take-home pay (by increasing tax thresholds) on people who have median or greater incomes does not remotely qualify as "left-wing" in my book.
As for proportional representation, I rather like the idea that it may lead to the need for consensus-building, and so hamstring governments who want to be seen as butch and taking "decisive action". Quite a lot of our woes could be avoided if governments could simply refrain from doing evil.
As the saying goes ... "politicians are a lot like diapers - they need changing regularly, and for much the same reasons." Or, as Lord Acton put it, "power tends to corrupt ..." And I think that the existing administrations in both the UK and the US have thoroughly demonstrated this.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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I absolutely agree with you all.
It's interesting to see how the US administration now contravene their own dogma about economics, because not doing so would spell absolute disaster. But being more worried about their financial institutions than about their ordinary citizens is firmly in line with their doctrines. If otherwise they would have acted by introducing control mechanisms a long time ago.
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Dear NW,
you continue to surprise me by saying things I think and couldn't express better.
Thank you. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Love,
Anthony
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Yes, Tor,
but if, instead of listening to what they say, which is all chosen to justify the actions they want to take and instead you look at their actions there is a pattern..
A huge majority of the actions are simply designed to be nice to people of their own class and standard of living and to pay back favours and obviously the bankers can't be allowed to suffer, nor the Haliburtons nor the people who support the war nor the newspaper magnates.
Just look to see who has really benefited from this administration! And the whole of the USA suffers in the cause of helping the rich.
Love,
Anthony
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HI, Just a short comment. I know that when we had the last election and there were all those "hanging chads" in Florida there was this wailing by the Democrats that it would now be the end of the world. I am sure that when this very close election goes to Obama, we will hear the same thing from the Republicans. And you know what, it will be the greedy and those who hate others that do the most damage to this country. I dont know if it would be a bad idea for congress to be in deadlock for 4 years; maybe then the spending would go down a bit. Selfishness and greed have no party lines and we will see it continue I am sure.
Ken
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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Just a memory flashed through my mind. Czech Republic (our western neighbour and a nation which we spent 68 years in common state with) recently had this strange situation, when the politicians tried to form a new government, but didn't succeed. New elections would have spoiled things for many major parties, so there was no will to ondergo them. Half a year they were governmentless (or better "free") and the economics was growing. The absence of government is sometimes most welcome. Our (very LEFT) prime minister, well,... Not to be too offensive I'll state only this one: I'm glad we are having Euro as of 1st of January 2009. I'm glad we are in NATO and EU, although I'm afraid that we still may become the first country to be recommended to leave... due to the attitudes of our prime minister and his party of communists. People still believe him. When they stop, will it be enough to stop the mayhem he's causing? I don't know, but hope for it.
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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