The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

[Neil Foxlee]

An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons and High Finance Fraudsters.

Greg Palast:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1841 ... e=&seller=

Read it and weep - or rather get very, very, very angry and do something about it, insofar as it's possible.

[Adam Blake]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7Jv3mwbW4&feature=PlayList&p=20595E93A22F3759&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3[/youtube]

[Neil Foxlee]

I forgot to say get very angry while retaining a sense of humour and proportion.

But then I nipped down to our local supermarket, and I see a version of this story on the front page of the Times:

"Hired guns take aim at target Tory seats
Tom Baldwin and Alice Fishburn

Dozens of Conservative parliamentary candidates are working in the lobbying industry that seeks to influence their party’s leadership.

An investigation by The Times has found that 28 prospective candidates who have a good chance of becoming Tory MPs are working as lobbyists or public relations consultants on behalf of businesses and other interests. More than a quarter got their jobs after being selected to fight seats.

Several acknowledged that they had set up meetings for clients with Shadow ministers, MPs and officials. More said that they had been asked to provide advice on the party’s direction. A few admitted to having pressed clients’ cases to Tory frontbenchers.

The disclosure challenges David Cameron’s promise to usher in a “new politicsâ€

[Des]

You are joking about Clegg aren't you? I've only been thinking this week how the Lib Dems have become yet another right of centre party just like the other two, and how absolutely bereft of ideas and passion they are under their 'leader'. At least in the past some of their policies placed them a little more to the left of New Labour. They are now even more of a non-entity than ever they were. Not that I've ever voted Lib Dem that is (or any party for that matter in recent years.....)

[Neil Foxlee]

Which policies were you thinking of? Did you watch or have you read the speech?

The main point was to tell voters who are pissed off with the other two main parties and are sympathetic to the LIbDems but wouldn't vote for them because they don't think they stand a chance is that the situation is in their hands.

The wonderful thing about being a radical cynic, if I can put it like that, is that you can always find something to prove you're right. It's the comfortable option. A cynic is an idealist who's given up on whatever they're cynical about (I'm sure even you aren't cynical about everything).
Radical scepticism yes, radical cynicism no.

I much prefer the original sense of 'cynicism'. To quote the Wikipedia entry:

"The [original Ancient Greek] Cynics rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic lifestyle.

By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to a new and very different understanding of cynicism to mean an attitude of jaded negativity, and a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of other people. Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled. Cynicism can manifest itself as a result of frustration, disillusionment, and distrust perceived as due to organizations, authorities and other aspects of society, and thus is roughly equivalent to a substantive form of the English word "jaded".'

[NormanD]

You are joking about Clegg aren't you? I've only been thinking this week how the Lib Dems have become yet another right of centre party just like the other two, and how absolutely bereft of ideas and passion they are under their 'leader'. At least in the past some of their policies placed them a little more to the left of New Labour. They are now even more of a non-entity than ever they were. Not that I've ever voted Lib Dem that is (or any party for that matter in recent years.....)

Des, you keep posting comments I agree with, in this case every word. Although I've thought this much about the Lib-Dums for longer than this week.

Clegg is just a man in a suit. Or a straw man in an over-stuffed suit. Nothing new, nothing different, merely competing with the other two men in suits about the level of public expenditure cuts they'd love to introduce (tearfully, no doubt, in the L-Ds' case).

As used to be sung, to the tune of "Darling Clementine"
Make a bonfire
Of the Tories
And put Labour on the top
Put the Liberals
In the middle
And let's burn the effing lot

PS I now see that I'm down as a "radical cynic". If that makes you happy, Neil, then so be it. I'd prefer to be known as a revolutionary socialist if you need a category.

[Neil Foxlee]

I now see that I'm down as a "radical cynic". If that makes you happy, Neil, then so be it. I'd prefer to be known as a revolutionary socialist if you need a category.

You're putting words in my mouth, Norman (unless you're Des in disguise) - your post came after mine. And you certainly can't accuse revolutionary socialists of lacking in idealism.

[NormanD]

Neil, I merely read your post after I had written, but not yet posted, mine. I added a PS when I saw what you had written. If "radical cynic" was aimed at Des, then it would be equally aimed at me as I agreed with him.

[Neil Foxlee]

Glad to have got that cleared up.

[Neil Foxlee]

However, I'd be interested to see what concrete proposals the party/parties/group(s) you support offer (apart from overturning the current system, that is). Can you supply a web link?

In the unlikely event that you have the slightest interest in what Nick Clegg said (I'm actually going to be looking at all the party leaders' speeches for professional reasons), here's a link:

http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/arti ... no_cache=1 . The policies (understandably not the last word at this stage) can be found in the 'A New Promise' section. But here's a taster of what went before:

"Back in 1997, Peter Mandelson told us to judge Labour after 10 years in government. It’s been twelve years. And we have made our judgement.

If you’re poor, you’re still far less likely to go to university than if you’re better off.

If you’re from an ethnic minority, you’re more likely to be stopped by the police, even when you haven’t done anything wrong.

If you’re a woman, you’ll probably be paid less than the men you know. And if you’re a child born in the poorest neighbourhood of my city, Sheffield, you will probably die 14 years before a child born the same day, just up the road, in a more affluent part of town.

We have made our judgement of Labour.
They betrayed the best hopes of a generation."

He opened by raising the possibility of exit from Afghanistan. Just words, no doubt, because "everyone knows" the LibDems have no prospect of gaining power. Rather like revolutionary socialists, really...

[NormanD]

However, I'd be interested to see what concrete proposals the party/parties/group(s) you support offer (apart from overturning the current system, that is). Can you supply a web link?

Maybe start here, Neil
France: http://tinyurl.com/ycyumty (I think your French is good)
UK: http://tinyurl.com/y9eyxsb
USA: http://tinyurl.com/ycpk4x2

There are plenty (more than plenty?) of other activist groups around, these are the ones I particularly follow.

And here's a current example of responding to the crisis that I'm sure the Lib-Dums wouldn't favour - French car workers attack the Paris Bourse (Stock Exchange).
http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=111641

[Neil Foxlee]

For the benefit of other readers, the translation of an article from Lutte Ouvriere (Workers' Struggle), available on the UK website listed above, argues that the 1938 programme of the (Trotskyist) Fourth International is still relevant 40 years on. It refers to (emphasis added)

"the sliding scale of wages - in order to protect workers from having their purchasing power eroded by inflation - and the sliding scale of working hours - in order to combat the social disaster resulting from unemployment and involuntary part-time or casual work. These are not intended to be items included in an electoral programme, whose implementation would depend on the goodwill of Parliament, but are objectives for workers' struggles. As such, they require the mobilisation of the working class for the purpose of exercising its control over companies and imposing the end of commercial secrecy, as a condition to make this control meaningful.
Against the backdrop of today's crisis, the Programme's objectives of expropriating private banks and bringing the credit system under state control in order to end the domination of finance capital are just as strikingly relevant.
Who can claim that these objectives, which were at the core of the Transitional Programme, have become outdated?"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky ... /index.htm

For the full Transitional Programme, see www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm , and for the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_Program .

The latter quotes the following on the sliding scale of working hours:

"Against unemployment, “structuralâ€

[dacuhnaa]

How does the US government define a democracy? The US says it wants to spread democracy but what does that mean? The US has (a quick google search) overthrown countless democracies throughout its history, why? What is the US's definition? Is it, "Democracy: any government which supports the political, social, and economic needs of the United States of America"?
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[Adam Blake]

Hi Dacuhnaa,
This is still the most incisive speech on this subject I've heard - and it comes from a Hollywood movie!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mWAxHpeew&feature=related[/youtube]