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The global swing to the right :-)
- Thread starter AngryAnt
- Start date
Just my 2c, but there is no global swing to the right or the left.
There is however a swing against ALL politicians.
But unfortunately this means the incumbents lose office as the pretenders to the throne - who are also politicians - win the elections.
And so the cycle continues.
People vote Hansen - but imagine if she got into power.
She'd very quickly be seen as just another politician and would quickly be booted out of office next time round.
It's all very depressing as the major issues just don't get discussed.
Issues such as debt, the deficit, population control (not just immigration), an integrated transport system, and clean energy (meaning a discussion on nuclear power as an option), etc.
Sigh!!
There is however a swing against ALL politicians.
But unfortunately this means the incumbents lose office as the pretenders to the throne - who are also politicians - win the elections.
And so the cycle continues.
People vote Hansen - but imagine if she got into power.
She'd very quickly be seen as just another politician and would quickly be booted out of office next time round.
It's all very depressing as the major issues just don't get discussed.
Issues such as debt, the deficit, population control (not just immigration), an integrated transport system, and clean energy (meaning a discussion on nuclear power as an option), etc.
Sigh!!
poppa x said:
Agree pop
(except the part about nuclear energy. Even putting the very real threat of accidents and the environmental damage and cleanup cost aside, its been shown over and over again to be too expensive, it was to be subsidised to buggery, mostly because of the astronomical cost of 'safe' waste disposal, which often turns out to be not that safe anyway. The myth of cheap and efficient nukes relies on never having accidents, because only old plants break, and new plants never get old right?, and pretending that waste disposal is easy and cheap, when it is the opposite))
poppa x said:
Agree with your comment re the swing is away from major parties full stop and that as a population we have lost the ability to have deep public conversations.
Not sure I agree with your list of major issues though.
Not sure
Ordinary people everywhere in the English-speaking world are seeing loss of economic security and declining standards of living. The culprit is neo-liberalism, which has seen more and more wealth siphoned out of reach of the every day person and into the hands of the of the super rich. Dominant parties have supported the neo-liberalism paradigm so voters have had nowhere to go for alternatives, or have blamed entities like the EU. In the US voters were given the choice of Clinton or Trump, and chose the most maverick option hoping for change. If they'd been given anti-neoliberal Sanders they might well have turned their backs on Trump. In the UK, voters swung decisively against May and towards anti-neoliberal Corbyn. In Australia the ALP is finally moving away from the neo-liberal orthodoxy. In conjunction with the pathetic performance of the coalition it may be enough to get them across the line at the next election in the face of a majority media ownership by a staunch defender of neoliberalism who isn't afraid to express his opinions as fact in his outlets.
Media commentators I think mistake people's confidence in 'the economy' with acceptance of the system. People (all over the world) recognise that the top end of town are doing okay and therefore the economy is chugging along. What those same commentators fail to realise at that people can have more than one idea at a time. People also know that their wages have stagnated while property prices have sky-rocketed and interest rates have plummeted. Since the 50's mergers and acquisitions have meant that a few large conglomerates now control the media, food, etc. I'm not a world government conspiracy nut it is just true that a surprisingly small number of massive companies control so much of our lives.
This is where the disconnect comes in. We are in a democratic system where we all believe our vote counts. We can control who our government is. But as they are all beholden to these massive companies, because they he chosen to be, we feel disempowered. We have the illusion of control and that breeds frustration. This is why so many of the recent elections seem to have been 'protest votes'. I have not much more faith in the Labor Party on this front as they are now just as engaged in double speak as everyone else. In that respect I agree with PoppaX.
This is where the disconnect comes in. We are in a democratic system where we all believe our vote counts. We can control who our government is. But as they are all beholden to these massive companies, because they he chosen to be, we feel disempowered. We have the illusion of control and that breeds frustration. This is why so many of the recent elections seem to have been 'protest votes'. I have not much more faith in the Labor Party on this front as they are now just as engaged in double speak as everyone else. In that respect I agree with PoppaX.
This is why bringing in socialist leaders will be a good thing long term, because they will remove the confusion of our economic malaise.Azza said:
I agree Knighter, the ALP has a long way to go before they give us something that might resemble the success that the Scandinavian countries have shown. Its support for the TPP shows that. There's been so much wealth and power concentration, not least in the media. The last 35 years or so have normalised the situation, so that many Australians can't accept an alternative.
Azza said:
agree. Theory-wise, neo-liberalism is over, even the IMF have pronounced it dead. It has generated huge wealth but also huge and increasing inequality that is now believed to be unsustainable. But practice always lags behind theory by a decade or two. And the super-rich who have benefited won't go down without a fight.
Azza said:
So what does the future of liberal democratic government look like? Does it have a future? If you mention Scandinavia you will get scoffs from conservatives and libertarians and the hoi polloi will switch off. Socialist is a dirty word mostly because it is erroneously equated with communist. So how do you start to have the conversation, in public, on the airwaves without everyone retreating to their silos?
I see, in the interim at least, a fracturing of the parties along issues lines. Bernardi may well be the first rat off the ship. We will have loose coalitions of smaller issues driven parties and independants forming minority governments.
Politicians abandoning 'talking points' would be my wet dream. (I need better dreams).
There is a production of '1984' on Broadway at the moment. KellyAnne Conway's invocation of 'alternative facts' caused a massive spike in the sales of the book world wide. (I read it too based on exactly that motivation). Corporate speak and weasel words are now so normal as to be mundane. My weekly emails of branding and exceptionalism from my U.S. company's PR department are just another example. Language has been 're-pourposed'. It is now, paradoxically, a way to avoid communicating. Use as many meaningless words as possible to avoid anyone being able to pin down any actual facts or solid positions. Answer questions in long form and ramble as much as you can and 'pivot' which is to say obfuscate as often as possible. Make it almost impossible to tell if you actually did answer the question asked and do so because audiences have short attention spans and hosts/presenter/journalists/editors know this so they won't hold your feet to the flames, they'll move on because their producer is prompting them to from behind the camera. Arrrrggghhhhhhh.
ullhair 
:brickwall
KnightersRevenge said:
had a good laugh today re our good friend Cory. In this article, he said this about safe schools:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cory-bernardis-party-seeks-a-toehold-in-victoria-takes-aim-at-safe-schools-20170615-gwrktl.html
"In Victoria the propaganda continues, the education system should be about learning not indoctrination," he said."
the double standards is truly breathtaking. his party has just merged with the Christian Right Family First Party. And what do Christian schools do? indoctrinate kids into their religion. :
Giardiasis said:
An 'alternative fact'. You know? The kind you don't need (any) evidence (at all) for...
Ian4 said:had a good laugh today re our good friend Cory. In this article, he said this about safe schools:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cory-bernardis-party-seeks-a-toehold-in-victoria-takes-aim-at-safe-schools-20170615-gwrktl.html
"In Victoria the propaganda continues, the education system should be about learning not indoctrination," he said."
the double standards is truly breathtaking. his party has just merged with the Christian Right Family First Party. And what do Christian schools do? indoctrinate kids into their religion. :
He's a gem, isn't he?
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