Can people stop saying “All politicians are the same”, please? As someone who has worked directly with politicians for a few years now, I can say … they are very definitely not the same. People’s real root values vary from one person to the next, and in my experience, true legends constantly rub shoulders with utter, utter shits (and sure, the vast majority are somewhere in between).
The trick is, not voting the utter shits into power in the first place, but you know that. Or you ought to. So if you have recently voted an utter shit into a position where they can make decisions about something larger than a shoe, then you have some serious thinking to do. If that hurts your ego a little; you’re welcome, don’t mention it.
I’m not saying any one political party is better than any other, but the self-harming ignorance I’m constantly aware of, both in the beautiful rolling hills of Olde Englande, and across the pond in the United States of ‘Merica, is a little disheartening, to say the least.
It’s easy to spot the shits: just look at (1) their ability to divide and blame categories of people, and (2) their specific voting record (for wild inconsistencies).
Although it’s true to say that nobody is perfect, it would be untrue to say “this category of person is corrupt”; that’s simply not the case. I come across this friction with my friends who despise the police, which is tricky when I have good friends who are ethical, thoughtful police officers. Or lawyers, ditto – I know some gentle, kindly solicitors I would trust my life to. I’ve had people rant at me about doctors as well (which has been interesting, when some of my closest friends are doctors) – clearly people’s fear/anger comes from specific places, but they are always wrong to categorise the target of their hatred. It’s just laziness – shall I look into my issues and process this anger, or shall I just blame an entire category of human? Hmm.
Perhaps therein lies the problem; people are not generally very good at making friends ‘across border’. When we do, when our life choices encourage us to step out of our comfort zones and our bubbles, we invariably see the humanity in each other and we start to speak more carefully about ‘categories’ of people. When we’re stuck in our bubble, one of the symptoms (aside from isolation and chaotic thoughts) is always going to be the simplification of trauma – pinning fears and upsets onto the dreaded ‘them’. Muslims. Tories. Libtards. Gammons. Lefties. Women. Police. Homeless. Billionaires. Men. Chinese. British. Gays. Trans kids. Boomers. Millenials. [NB. I don’t hate Billionaires, I just think they shouldn’t be given an opportunity to exist].
“But but but … my hatred is justified!” Whines the adolescent, as the mechanism of their hatred undoes them. Don’t get me wrong; anger is a legitimate short-term tool, but when its left too long, it seems this rot happens to us.
Interestingly, someone pointed out in a comment thread recently: what a website this is, where diehard leftists and reactionary rightists can all come together. Perhaps that’s something good that Lithium has tried to achieve; enabling disagreement without completely dishonouring the humans with whom we disagree. I’m a little proud of that, I have to say – that this series/website has always hosted people from extremely different backgrounds. A good sign of any healthy community, I think.
The Church of England did a thing years ago where they said one of their ‘values’ was to disagree well. As a casual observer I have to say I admire that approach – any institution made up of many thousands of people is going to struggle with cohesive discussions, but at least where we do disagree, perhaps we can do so kindly.
Unless we’re talking about Nazis.
Who can … as always … fuck off.
… no doubt that’s going to be a difficult concept for those who can’t hold paradox in their heads. Ah well. Lots of talking points there. Good luck, everyone!
„Them“. YES! Great opener!
We are not many, but people who see what you discussed … the do exist!
But the course comes in many variations: a broken social contract, the feeling I have been betrayed by the system and of course good old propaganda.
So start with “them” is a good summary… .
What helped me more and more over the years was asking myself the opposite questions. “The country is broken because the government can’t build working infrastructure on time and on budged. The waste billions.” Then ask yourself: what do you estimate how many projects are being built this year? And how many of them were a scandal? Only this one? So therefore 99.9% of projects are pretty much okay. And what is the problem now?
Or is your parliament “full of idiots”? Is your social “club” full of child molesters? Well, what did this bank robber say? “Why do you rob banks?” “Well, that’s where the money is.” That the catholic church had no real clue and encouragement to investigate that…maybe the bigger problem is we have systems, that don’t have any incentive to fix themselves. If the oversight is done by the people who have no encouragemtn or the same motivation as the group, they should check…so what do you expect?
Examples? Okay.
Boeing checked by the TSA, but the 3 (THREE!) people doing the QS, are employes from Boeing and managed by them. / Political systems where an individual don’t have to state their income or donations and which interest groups are responsible. / A judiciary that does not represent all the people but is selected by politicians and their own agenda. You know. The end of “separation of power”. Also called the US Supreme Court.
In the moment the press is playing a big role in that. They basically have no real possibility to finance themselves and journalists are under real pressure to produce, produce and produce… I even see left wing newspapers write right wing articles and the other way around. “No matter what. Make articles that make people click them!”. A honest newspaper would often have the headline, “nothing really happened here.” But most of the time you end up with information that are one-sided and provides no context of the topic at all. But it povides an opinion.
“Electric car sales dropped by 60%!” …so they sold 10 cars and now 4? Or are we talking about millions of cars? You will never know, because every second sentence starts with, “we think…”or “it could be”. Yeah. That’s why I read the news. To know what this person thinks… .
We had articles on Monday, saying the EV infrastructure in Berlin is shit. On Friday we had an article saying, how great the EV infrastructure in Berlin is, as they have double the number of chargers per capita as the average of the country. … great! Now I know.
You really have to dive deep into topics, see articles from different sources and put the timeline in perspective. And then you have educated yourself about only THIS ONE TOPIC…
And don’t worry about Nazis. They are all dead. You know…80 years.
Worry about Neo Nazis instead.
… or fix the voting system in the UK. You know. Democratic voting system. It should be “equal, direct, free and secret”. So….I assume 50% is a good start. But having the oldest parliament doesn’t make it automatically more democratic… . And the argument, “it worked for centuries”, raises the question why such things don’t get an update.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist 🙂
Most of the time the people deciding either :
– don’t have acces to the proper information(no knowledge voters),
– don’t have the right incentives (pensionners voting for increase of taxes on working population.
Rich people voting for immigration to put pressure on workers wages.)
– don’t want the same thing(different objective mean a different right and wrong choice,
If what you want is punishment for any maner of original sin, you don’t promote the good for your country/group)
Fix this by selecting for important decision only the people that :
1)will do the research(maybe as a group research activity before voting, idk)
2)are actually paying more taxes then they take out the system+no conflict of interest(no more big oil stopping nuclear energie)
3)have a familly with kids that they persumably want to survive and have a happy life(or a differant way to ensure they prioritise the long term health/culture/stability of the society)
If we can do this, we are saved, however i don’t see this as likely without bloodshed first.
Too right Sindy. The whataboutery is off the scale. Perhaps it helps people sleep easier when voting directly for bigotry. Looking forward to Lithium!
As my dad used to say: “The problem with Communists is that they generalise too much.”
As with all things, SAJ shows once again that she has the insight and clarity of observation that pervades her work. Anyone who sees the excesses of the current horde of reactionaries in the same way as the programs of the moderates and liberals of the past is truly delusional, beyond hope, and a major part of the problem. The inability of the masses to demonstrate any semblance of critical thinking should be our biggest worry. And I have a hard time believing that the reactionaries who frequent SAJ’s domains have even the slightest notion what she is really about and what her works are espousing.
They are here for the boobies.