IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't hate Starmer, but I feel the life draining out of me when I think of or see him. He has the air of a particularly limp Sainsbury's manager.

I feel pretty much the same - which means that I find him infinitely preferable to this particular demonic manifestation of the Tories. And I find it hard to see how anyone in their right mind could reasonably think otherwise.

So there's not really much room for productive debate on the above. Sure you can talk about how much you liked Corbyn etc but these Tories are so bad that as far as I can see there's really nothing to think about in terms of voting and in that respect the conversation feels academic which why I struggle to understand how vitriolic it is. Except some people are saying they will sulkily withold their vote which seems crazy.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Actually what happened to me is pretty simple - I got interested in foreign policy and events in Syria and realised Corbyn was a racist moral vacuum and not suitable to be PM. His reaction was the Skirpal and recent takes on Ukraine confirm that view. Amazed not-amazed that badly fucking up around the most consequential decisions he could make doesn't impinge on people still wanting him for PM.

Hang on, which British politician is not a racist moral vacuum? again, this is disingenuous. I'm not a Corbynite but this is hysterical. As if racism as an individual failing and not baked into the management of populations. Even Patel and Sunak are racists, something youse have no problem saying, but then go all weird when it comes to Huq or the Apsana Begum trial.

What has starmer done for A) Syrians or B) the systematic and prevalent islamophobia within the labour party?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I can more easily imagine Diane Abbott replacing Rachel Riley on Countdown than permitting herself to be 'co-opted' by Starmer.

there you go. That's Starmer for you. An idiot and a degenerate. Guy has absolutely no bloody sense of long corridor parliamentary intrigue. Just sacks who he doesn't like. Idiot!
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I feel pretty much the same - which means that I find him infinitely preferable to this particular demonic manifestation of the Tories. And I find it hard to see how anyone in their right mind could reasonably think otherwise.

So there's not really much room for productive debate on the above. Sure you can talk about how much you liked Corbyn etc but these Tories are so bad that as far as I can see there's really nothing to think about in terms of voting and in that respect the conversation feels academic which why I struggle to understand how vitriolic it is. Except some people are saying they will sulkily withold their vote which seems crazy.

to be fair, you live in Portugal as a hot shot hipster party dj. I really don't think you have any legwork to criticise peoples choices when you're not even in the country.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
as for Danny this is exactly why I soured from westerners talking about Syria. They criticise the lefts complicity with Russia/Assad, fine, but then don't push these criticisms into how it is advantageous to the UK and US to keep Assad in power. Turkey even. So your political analyses end up being the moral vacuum you criticise your opponents of. If the British government really wanted to arm the FSA and topple flimsy Assad, it would. It didn't, and this isn't something which can be legislated into existence by parliament. Rather than getting all bitter about this, and perceiving it as an offence to your sensibilities, perhaps you should consider why great powers love to play factions offb against each other?

I think you've turned Putin and the Russian state into a demonic evil with no precedent, which is really no different to people who think the tories are the worst thing in the world, just from the other side. It's the same Christian pathology of salvation. Lest we forget, Putin got to where he was because of Yeltsin's shock treatment privatisation, a policy the right leaning commentators you sympathise with enthusiastically backed in the 90s. If we are going to use the framework of complicity, then where does that put the likes of Canning and campbell?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Hang on, which British politician is not a racist moral vacuum? again, this is disingenuous. I'm not a Corbynite but this is hysterical. As if racism as an individual failing and not baked into the management of populations. Even Patel and Sunak are racists, something youse have no problem saying, but then go all weird when it comes to Huq or the Apsana Begum trial.

What has starmer done for A) Syrians or B) the systematic and prevalent islamophobia within the labour party?
look at how his fans view him, is all I'm saying.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
as for Danny this is exactly why I soured from westerners talking about Syria. They criticise the lefts complicity with Russia/Assad, fine, but then don't push these criticisms into how it is advantageous to the UK and US to keep Assad in power. Turkey even. So your political analyses end up being the moral vacuum you criticise your opponents of. If the British government really wanted to arm the FSA and topple flimsy Assad, it would. It didn't, and this isn't something which can be legislated into existence by parliament. Rather than getting all bitter about this, and perceiving it as an offence to your sensibilities, perhaps you should consider why great powers love to play factions offb against each other?

I think you've turned Putin and the Russian state into a demonic evil with no precedent, which is really no different to people who think the tories are the worst thing in the world, just from the other side. It's the same Christian pathology of salvation. Lest we forget, Putin got to where he was because of Yeltsin's shock treatment privatisation, a policy the right leaning commentators you sympathise with enthusiastically backed in the 90s. If we are going to use the framework of complicity, then where does that put the likes of Canning and campbell?
Not so fast matey. I and a lot of others were in favour of Syrian self-determination and read with great admiration accounts of how revolutionary Syrians set up systems of mutual aid, and disproved the racist bullshit that Arabs are incapable of social democracy. That's who I'm pissed on behalf of.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
fuck off. You know I've never cared for infantile shit like that. Must I keep repeating myself?
Dude what is the point of conversing with you when at the slightest challenge you tell people to fuck off? It's not my job to keep your convoluted meta-system in my head thank fuck. I answered a question the world's most boring politician a couple of pages back, commenting on left factionalism and you're barracking me for not calling out every single British MP as a hypocrite?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Not so fast matey. I and a lot of others were in favour of Syrian self-determination and read with great admiration accounts of how revolutionary Syrians set up systems of mutual aid, and disproved the racist bullshit that Arabs are incapable of social democracy. That's who I'm pissed on behalf of.

like the corbyn fandom, this is a problem of the white Brits. Why should we give a shit about their racist attitudes? It's their responsibility to sort themselves out, they are not children. and yes I know you're mixed race but you're really talking like one of them now. It is not our responsibility to turn Starmer into an anti-racist or campaign for him to reduce islamophobia in the party.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Dude what is the point of conversing with you when at the slightest challenge you tell people to fuck off? It's not my job to keep your convoluted meta-system in my head thank fuck. I answered a question the world's most boring politician a couple of pages back, commenting on left factionalism and you're barracking me for not calling out every single British MP as a hypocrite?

No I'm calling you out for your obsession with corbyn fans. Let it go, danny, let it go. It's infantile and tedious. I've never cared what Corbyn fans think, I can come to my own conclusions myself, thank you.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
No I'm calling you out for your obsession with corbyn fans. Let it go, danny, let it go.
Thing is, I find the politics of factionalism interesting and it's role in the history of the Labour Party. The same with left antisemitism. There's something about the perversity of it that engages my interest. It's like Reich's Mass Psychology but on the internet with gifs. I admit I do get drawn into it too much on here but I don't claim to be perfect.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Thing is, I find the politics of factionalism interesting and it's role in the history of the Labour Party. The same with left antisemitism. There's something about the perversity of it that engages my interest. It's like Reich's Mass Psychology but on the internet with gifs. I admit I do get drawn into it too much on here but I don't claim to be perfect.

ok, that's cool. we can discuss that. But why specifically labour, and not the tories, or the former CPSU, or the former ba'athists? Or even the republicans and democrats?

All political parties tend to factionalism as a necessity. I'm just not sure why labours one is so interesting or perverse, when it can basically be boiled down to one group of well meaning (heart in the right place) but useless posh chaps who think socialism can be achieved democratically through the ballot box, and another bunch of not well meaning yet useful idiots for the british government, and a centre which vascillates between the two.

If we're going to talk psychology, I think, with you and @craner there is a sense in which you believe the Corbynists were an existential threat to a sense of British community. Because a dispassionate analysis could have told you that the Corbynists would only have succeeded by capitulating to the demands of managing the British state and being a government in office, something they clearly couldn't do in any meaningful way within the structures of the labour party, which is still in the final instance dependent on the legislature.

I note you've dodged my questions about islamophobia in the labour party as well.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
kebab, eh? better a rotating kebab than a soggy cottage pie.

ok, that's cool. we can discuss that. But why specifically labour, and not the tories, or the former CPSU, or the former ba'athists? Or even the republicans and democrats?

All political parties tend to factionalism as a necessity. I'm just not sure why labours one is so interesting or perverse, when it can basically be boiled down to one group of well meaning (heart in the right place) but useless chaps who think socialism can be achieved democratically through the ballot box, and another bunch of not well meaning yet useful idiots for the british government, and a centre which vascillates between the two.

If we're going to talk psychology, I think, with you and @craner there is a sense in which you believe the Corbynists were an existential threat to a sense of British community. Because a dispassionate analysis could have told you that the Corbynists would only have one by capitulating to the demands of managing the British state.
a) I'm closest to the Left and know them better b) there's a particular hypocrisy there - you can't imagine angry Tories running IT WAS A SCAM hash tag if they were called out for hating Jews can you? They'd just shrug and say "yeah fair enough"

I'm interested in Labour's history - the rows with Militant in the 80s, the shift to Blairism, the achievements of his govt, their failures, Iraq and the rhetorical force that lent Left critiques. I think this is probably a question of understanding the millieu I'm closest to.
 
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