is it really so wrong for me not to vote?

wild greens

Well-known member
Secondly you seem to do what labour voters do and separate good pre-1979 labour from (bad) post 1997 labour.

Where did i do this? I wasn't alive in 1979.

I think the current opposition is absolutely shit tbh- as I've said previously - so if the voter apathy does actually derive from the ineffectual nature of current Labour, i wouldn't actually be surprised.

My point was that your earlier opinion said we are a tory country and everything is reflected through this prism, so to blame anything directly on Labour seems impossible?

As for
or let me put the question to you: since you're intent upon giving labour a chance, who do you want to replace Starmer? Raynor? I mean good luck with that, her whole appeal rests on 'I'm authentic, my colleagues are not.'

Fuck knows. Rayner wouldn't get in, we can both agree on that.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I think the current opposition is absolutely shit tbh- as I've said previously - so if the voter apathy does actually derive from the ineffectual nature of current Labour, i wouldn't actually be surprised.

My point was that your earlier opinion said we are a tory country and everything is reflected through this prism, so to blame anything directly on Labour seems impossible?

Yes, because Britain is not a republic. There are very few true republicans in labour. That doesn't mean labour is exempt from blame, it's more that they are a loyal opposition. An opposition, but not oppositional enough.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
which is why I compared it to Turkey. In Turkey, the CHP always defines itself in opposition to the AKP or its analogs. Because there is no sovereign to swear loyalty to, no entrenched system of privileges, all privileges are attained through the market. In this sense whilst the AKP can shape Turkey in its own image, it can only do so insofar as a political party. Whereas the tories are a compromise between the aristocracy and industrialists. Which is all I'm saying. Being a proper tory involves abiding respect for tradition, which is why American conservatives seem uncouth and brutish to us.
 

version

Well-known member
It's much easier to justify not voting if you stick to a macro view of politics. If you start to look at specifics, like whether every party's in favour of knocking Universal Credit back down or whether it's just the one, then reasons for voting become clearer.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Basically, I'm saying Stowe and Eton should be bombed to the ground so that we can get people to
It's much easier to justify not voting if you stick to a macro view of politics. If you start to look at specifics, like whether every party's in favour of knocking Universal Credit back down or whether it's just the one, then reasons for voting become clearer.

Disagree, it's much easier to justify voting when you stick to a macro view of politics. I am too micro, because I'm interested in said partys social bases. I'm not against voting like anarchists, I merely think its importance is vastly inflated.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Im going the pub now

this is the problem with Anglos! As soon as we try and give them a real political culture, a real parliamentary culture so that all the naked corruptions of capitalism can come out, so that they are not burdened by the toff, it's off to the pub and singing Panegyrics for Lizzy I.
 

version

Well-known member
Disagree, it's much easier to justify voting when you stick to a macro view of politics. I am too micro, because I'm interested in said partys social bases. I'm not against voting like anarchists, I merely think its importance is vastly inflated.
I think if you stick to the macro then you see the whole sweep of defeat after defeat and the full scope of the machine you're up against. If you focus on small, material improvements, like the £20 knocked off Universal credit, then it's less demoralising and there's a clear metric for improvement.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I think if you stick to the macro then you see the whole sweep of defeat after defeat and the full scope of the machine you're up against. If you focus on small, material improvements, like the £20 knocked off Universal credit, then it's less demoralising and there's a clear metric for improvement.

hmmm I don't think so. I think that extremely micro view of politics (as you frame it) is shattered for everyone after 2-3 years involvement in political life. I don't think its possible to remain at that level for long, unless one has material interests in wanting to preserve the status quo. Either that, or they are using politics as a kind of masochistic escape in the Sadeian sense, we cling to the immoral to define the moral.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
hence the common slogan: 'vote labour with no illusions' which gives up its own secret, essentially imploring people not to mean their vote.
 

version

Well-known member
hmmm I don't think so. I think that extremely micro view of politics (as you frame it) is shattered for everyone after 2-3 years involvement in political life. I don't think its possible to remain at that level for long, unless one has material interests in wanting to preserve the status quo. Either that, or they are using politics as a kind of masochistic escape in the Sadeian sense, we cling to the immoral to define the moral.
Probably, but I'm thinking specifically of people I know on UC and the difference losing that £20 would make to them. I don't think they really care about the sort of stuff being discussed here, but if voting for one party strips them of that money and voting for another doesn't then that's a clear incentive to vote for the latter.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Probably, but I'm thinking specifically of people I know on UC and the difference losing that £20 would make to them. I don't think they really care about the sort of stuff being discussed here, but if voting for one party strips them of that money and voting for another doesn't then that's a clear incentive to vote for the latter.

Sure, but I don't think most people on UC would frame it like that, speaking as someone who has been around many people who live on benefits and being on benefits myself. It's more I'll vote, but from a pov of resignation. Not even on lesser evilist grounds, more that maybe something bizarre will happen and the latter party will be in power. But there's none of that canvassing, campaigning, political investment. You vote, and then go back home, and are unlikely to make a big deal about it on social media, because for all intents and purposes its a purely practical choice (not an ethico-political one.)
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Like I voted for labour in 2010 because of the tories stance on austerity and benefit cuts, but did I think labour would be different? Absolutely not. it was merely a case of let me try and get my head sorted for the time being, there was very little politics in it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
which again is why I find a lot of these debates vex. As a disabled ethnic I'm duty bound to vote labour if I do, unless I want to get ridiculed to kingdom come. So being strawmanned on this forum is a bit like woah, guys, I'm the pawn your party has in a double bind: strangling me — it's either us or the tories, but never *you*

Not that that strawmanning upsets me, i just find it funny. I'm prime labour recruitment fodder, i can just face the music.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Like I voted for labour in 2010 because of the tories stance on austerity and benefit cuts, but did I think labour would be different? Absolutely not. it was merely a case of let me try and get my head sorted for the time being, there was very little politics in it.
This sounds a lot like "I voted Labour, but I did so cleverly, knowing it would make no difference even if they won, not like those poor rubes who voted Labour because they thought a Labour government would represent their interests better than a Conservative one."

Which doesn't seem very different to "I don't vote at all because I'm smart and cynical enough to know it never makes any difference, unlike those rubes who..."
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
This sounds a lot like "I voted Labour, but I did so cleverly, knowing it would make no difference even if they won, not like those poor rubes who voted Labour because they thought a Labour government would represent their interests better than a Conservative one."

Which doesn't seem very different to "I don't vote at all because I'm smart and cynical enough to know it never makes any difference, unlike those rubes who..."

Are you calling yourself out there? Not good form.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
My dad was from a working class conservative background. The desire for upward mobility is at its weakest in the comfortable middle classes. When you're working 14-16 hours in a felt factory you want to get out of there as soon as possible. My dad wasn't hostile to social democracy per se, he was merely unimpressed with the ownership of industry being transfered to the state. And I think this is an aspect that people in England tend to miss, because of the outsourcing of a lot of manual labour to the third world.

which again is why I find a lot of these debates vex. As a disabled ethnic I'm duty bound to vote labour if I do, unless I want to get ridiculed to kingdom come. So being strawmanned on this forum is a bit like woah, guys, I'm the pawn your party has in a double bind: strangling me — it's either us or the tories, but never *you*

Left-lite as may be interpreted case study - when you’re working 14-16 hours as agency staff in the NHS or any other number of jobs (capitalism = life currently = death), you’re doing it because there’s a need, even a vocation, more likely because there’s nowhere else to go. Politics is beyond monitoring crises. I see it every day with organisations unable to communicate with each other, a bit Ken Loachy agreed, just look at how many NHS trusts have been put into special measures in recent memory. Rotten management and cultures of fear

I hate England too for different reasons, but this mantra you have about a coddled mass of blow hards who couldn’t give a fuck because the third world can twerk it is tawdry. It plays to a warped worldview held by the very culprits you despise. Not everyone is an apathetic or dismissive cunt incapable of grasping the greater game. Not even close and we all have to negotiate the shadows of empires, whether present, fallen or rising

Citing wage slaves engaged in battery work because someone wants to smell fresh children’s tears on their new Nikes is different. It’s heavy on detail and misses nuance. Race is always going to be a factor in humans and the return of EU nationals to the continent due to Brexit shows the fracture cleaved from all sides. Yes, England’s class system remains coded and bounded - an invitation is rarely extended to those without - which is why the greatest anxiety bandwidth is taken up by its lower middle class, possibly the bulk of the country

It’s this demographic and those immediately below that have been hit hardest by Covid and as such have the capacity to politically glass Britain ruthlessly in the proceeding years, something you may rejoice in, something much much worse than Brexit and the “Tories”. The anger is there, you can actually taste it now. A shift has happened, something more malignant with Covid has opened a madness even the mask of democracy, the ethics of voting or left-communism might be behind on
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
anyway, its got fuck all to do with cleverness. It's merely doing my civic duty. All right, I will fucking vote, I will vote with the absolute requisite enthusiasm and no more, just to shut you up. and then you can't call me out for not voting when you are proven wrong. Wholly utilitarian, you see.
 
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