This is insane!

I get what you're saying globe, but again, the differences in opinion between me and you are probably purely based on geographical and environmental upbringing as much as anything. Even though I'm not living at home anymore, I still look at politics through the eyes of an islander that doesn't care much for independence or unionism in fact. I'm happy with the status quo back home because the status quo back home is good I feel, so I don't desperately need change if you know what I mean. I never considered voting independence, because I genuinely believed it would make home worse off.

I don't doubt Scottish Labour is full of absolute roasters, most of whom you've mentioned, but that's Scottish Labour - this was UK Labour and like 2010 when Gordon Brown pretty much won most of Scotland (yet we also had an SNP Scottish government so voting for one and then the other doesn't have to be mutually exclusive), I just think that it makes sense on a UK level to vote Labour in a general election. But then on the other hand, maybe the record for Labour MPs in Dundee was appalling back in the day, so I sympathise with what you're saying.

Well some folk are strangely disappointed that Corbyn didn't win. He was never going to win - not based on anything to do with himself, but simply because Labour were operating at such a low vote base from the 2015 election disaster. The swings from Conservative to Labour would have to have been absolutely monumental and unseen in political history for them to win, and with only two years separating the elections, that was always going to be impossible for such a drastic turnaround in short time. So this election was about building a platform for the next election, and they undoubtedly did that. Hung parliament was the best thing that people could hope for. And it happened, so it's all about how they build from here on.

Bahahaha!

The press will never be perfect, it'll either be too far into government controlled territory which then borders on fake news being generated by government, or it will go too far the other way into privately owned territory which is more or less the same thing with how close Murdoch/etc. are with the people with the power.

It's why people say stuff like "something needs to be done", because in reality there is no effective and stable solution to it without sacrificing freedom of speech or allowing liars to exploit their financial power and do and say whatever they want. Yeah, it's screwed up, and odds are it's reaching enough of an extreme that it will swing back in the other direction again some time in the not too distant future, reach some sort of nice middleground, overshoot, and loop again.


Soz for the pessimism, but often it feels like politics and the media interplay is just a game that you can watch, fast forward and rewind by putting some effort in, but changing the tape or the final score ain't possible.

That's just a rewind. Imagine a world where all that has happened, there's been a mass push for getting rid of a biased media controlled by government etc. as the video suggests. We're in a utopia. Ok. Then what? There will be people who will want to take advantage of that. It's just human, if the system is good, people will want to and will take advantage of it, and if it's not good, obviously people will discredit it. 

I really don't believe in a utopia, because different people have different ideas of what 'perfect' or a 'utopia' is, so inevitably there will always be people who aren't happy with the current state of affairs and will therefore aim to bring it down (and odds are eventually they will succeed). Media and the propagation of information (ooh that rhymes ) is probably one of the most important factors in defining such a society.

At uni, I've been surrounded by people who really think they're achieving something, and honestly they're not. They may have studied all of the requisite books, philosophers and a cheeky bit of Chomsky, but for all of the arguments I've had or witnessed over dinner about random points of law or society, none of them have ever achieved anything. It just seems to devolve into people clinging to whatever their utopian ideal is just so they can hold the badge of winning the 5:30 political argument of the given day.

I wasted so much of my first year at uni just arguing with people about politics all the fucking time and eventually I realised that no one was going to agree with me, and if in the end I found a way that would force them to agree with me, it would ironically go against my want for free will. Which lead onto the only way to win is to lose, and therefore you can't win. Can't be fucking arsed with trying any more because imo politics is just a fun distraction for anyone who wants to play the game, just like the X Factor for people who aren't into Brian Friedman's post-2000 choreography.

How come that with all of these philosophers, and more people than ever reading up on this stuff and knowing exactly how the system works, that it's still going, if not stronger than ever? Whilst there are enough people feel comfortable, why would they campaign for change? All of the changes just seem superficial. '80s and early '90s a decade or so on the right wing... Late '90s and '00s back to left wing... '10s seem mostly right wing again.... Just feels like whilst you can run towards the horizon and delay the sunset for a small time longer, there's no way of stopping it forever.

Btw, don't take any of this venting^ personally, had a lot of Strongbow this afternoon, although that isn't to say I don't stand by these views  

EDIT/ADDENDUM : That video was way too overdoing it for my liking. Sort of thing that promotes student and tin-foil-hat politics, but in terms of actual interesting point making got shrouded in cartoon-ish animation that almost devolved into the style of propaganda that they seemed to want to be seen to be trying to oppose. Only way they can win is to lose again.

I don't really understand what points you're making - them seem incredibly fuzzy and often just wrong.

First of all, you seem to completely misunderstand the video and Chomsky's ideas; it's not that the government is controlling the media, it's that the media is one of many power systems in society which naturally compliment each other and enforce certain narratives and concepts - particularly the establishment of certain unspoken tenants in society like the necessity of both capitalism and the state. From this, we get a narrow range of acceptable opinion which continually shifts to the right, which we have seen Corbyn break from recently and be punished for in his media coverage. As theyknowwhatimean showed, this is fundamentally undemocratic, and as I said, there are several common sense solutions we can take to limit it's effect in the everyday world.

You immediately jump from this idea to the word "utopia", which is...strange. I don't know if you've been talking about the idea in uni recently, but no-one here is saying there would be a utopia - and Marx himself said that a utopia was neither possible or desirable, as the strength and beauty of human character is shown in dealing with adversity. You make some arguments against a "utopia" that seem totally unbased and bizarre, but as you're the only one talking about such a situation, I won't argue against them.

I have no idea what ideas or ideals you're referring to in your third paragraph, and I can't speak for your experience of various dinner parties - but I will say I think the free and informed discussion of a wide range of social ideas would be a feature of any meaningful democracy, and I would celebrate rather than bemoan it. Also, if you consider the ideas of democracy and free thought "utopian", then for me you are only showing how efficient the current system is at containing accepted thought away from rather natural freedoms and social ideas.

"Politics in a fun distraction for anyone who wants to play the game" - I wonder if this is how you feel if you were one of those 50% of older Americans who faced retirement without any pension, or one of those mentally ill people who is being ignored and punished by the Conservative government for being unable to work, or one of those who were born and will die in abject poverty as a result of being on the losing side of class warfare. To me, that is a ridiculous statement.

Your penultimate point is totally wrong. First of all, in historical terms, the class war has been progressing towards the side of the working class for centuries. It's not so long ago that the working class started work at 12, with no health and safety, no minimum wage, no right to strike, no healthcare, and no education to speak of. It's by constant struggle that real changes have been made, and we should not forget them. Also, many of the systems at play have been weakened; print media is far less influential than it has been for decades, organised religion is less powerful than ever as a means of encouraging working class submission, and now with Sanders & Corbyn we have finally seen a mainstream political backlash to the neo-liberal consensus that have existed since the 70's.

You say the changes have been superficial from the 90's / 00's / 10's - and you're right. However you seem to be under the SEVERE delusion that there has been ANY shift towards any left-wing social ideas in recent history. There hasn't. We have seen since the 70's an extremist right-wing western world without exception, regardless of parties in power, and there are several books and reams of horrific evidence to show this. Even now, with the shift towards a real alternative that Corbyn and Sanders show, it is only a centre-left alternative. The main thrust of society would be the same, but the harsher edges (absurd inequality, homelessness, food banks, healthcare and education) would be limited.

I have got absolutely no idea what "the only way to win is to lose again" means. You seem to think society changes between left and right wing, free and undemocratic, progressive and regressive  on a regular basis, which is obviously ridiculous.

Ah... the DUP







www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/who-are-the-dup_uk_593cfbd9e4b0c5a35ca03d84?

Couldn't we just elect Noel fucking Gallagher and be done with it already?

I think my BA in Political Science begs to differ.

NG for PM

Trump University.