I was asked at an event earlier this week why it is that I get up each morning and almost invariably write a blog or two before breakfast.
My reply was that almost without fail there is good reason to be angry every morning: I have only to read the news to realise that in some way or other my generation is failing the next. To make it personal I blog because I feel I have a duty to my sons to try to make sense of and address that mess. But of course it's not just them: it's all their friends and beyond that their friend's friends until such time as everyone is embraced for whom I feel this sense of remorse, and desire to do something about it.
I can only presume politicians whi trooped through the lobby t vote for Article 50 last night, even though they believe in Europe and even though they know that this is the wrong thing to do for the county, don't have that sense of obligation to others. Their own desire to expediently keep their seat matters more. As Ken Clarke said, I hope they can live with their consciences.
As many will tell you, compromise with what I think is wrong is not always my greatest strength. I have never worried about it. I sometimes wish others might share that trait a little more. We might not be in the mess we now face if that was the case.
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This appears to show that contrary to the frequently made argument, MP salaries are quite high enough. If the incumbents are so keen not to lose them that they will vote against what they believe is best for them, their constituents and the country as a whole. And with incipient fascism.
One of the problems is that a lot of the ignorance out there is very pervasive.
My thirteen year old daughter told me over dinner last night that there were too many immigrants in the country. Yet we live in an area that is predominantly white.
She also told me that the word ‘nigger’ could be used in certain contexts and that those who would not tolerate the word (like me) were suffering from ‘white guilt’.
Said daughter has picked this up from social media and school. But there is something wrong here – it seems that what is lacking is some form of accountability or proximity to those affected by such comments. Comments made in isolation in a bedroom on a computer seem to be easier to say than amongst a mixed group of people face to face.
The daughter spends a lot of time on social media through her mobile phone (we have running battles over her usage of her phone – she is glued to it).
I had a severe argument with my younger brother too about BREXIT – he lives in Eire but was telling me that he’d ‘got his country back’. My brother is a full time carer of a disabled daughter so most if not all his input is through Youtube and the like.
I watched Channel 4 News last night and the feature about the Alt Right to be confronted by a well spoken young man talking about the Bell Curve as a proper piece of research that should be taken seriously.
It seems to me that the internet can provide justification for believing anything. I suppose that it can work this way for progressive too. But the Alt Right seems grounded in anger and frustration. There is also a deliberate ignorance of history amongst the Alt Right which is very marked and worrying.
But the real clue (and difference with progressives) to what is going on is how the Alt Right seems to instantaneously resort to throwing insults at those who question their ‘alternative facts’. They do not reason back – they attack and insult back – they use almost medieval tactics like questioning your loyalty to your country and other specious arguments to throw reason out of the window.
We need to learn how to deal with them effectively.
Agreed
And you are not alone with the phone issue
Except mine say I live on it
Pilgrim, I too watched the C4 item on the alt.right, and like you the section on the young man who stood in front of his bookshelf and held out ‘The Bell Curve’ as scientific research and a ‘must read’ for alt.right (he later described himself as a paleo conservative, as did several others) as was Mein Kamp, according to him. But I wasn’t surprised. Lately while stuck at home I’ve been watching a fair number of the US late night shows and via them came across a darling of the alt.right Tomi Lahren. There’s an excellent vlog on her here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQPJzv6Dhk4
But to pick up on your daughter’s point about ‘white guilt’ this all fits with Lahren’s claim (and that of many on the alt.right) that white people are discriminated against on a par with black people: seriously!! Anyway, I won’t say more watch the Tom Dollemore vlog from 4 minutes. The discrimation against whites bit is at 6 minutes (surveys show 67% of republicans believe this).
Thanks Ivan – I will girdle my loins nd have a look-see.
I’ll also try to type better!
I’m just re-reading a biography of Thonmas Cochrane – how times don’t change with respect to the HoP, corruption and politicians living “with their consciences”. The current crop seem just as bad as the past rabble – with a few honourable exceptions.
Indeed, there are amazing parallels between 2017 and 1817 (i.e. the body politic in both centuries overlooking poverty and needy (tories in 2017 look the other way when food banks are mentioned – they did the same in 1817). Massive corruption (1817 & now) an assumption that the charitable sector could take up the slack (1817 & now) etc etc.
I suspect many followers of your blog have a reason (or many) to be angry every morning, for similar reasons to your own, Richard. For example, as I’m currently off work and largely confined to my house, yesterday I watched Elizabeth Warren’s speech against Nancy de Vos becoming Secretary of Education in Trump’s cabinet (for those that don’t know, Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat Senator and Nancy de Vos is a billionaire and major donor to the Republican party. She was finally confirmed as Education Secretary after the Vice President came to Congress and used his casting vote to break a 50 – 50 tied vote that blocked her nomination).
Why is this of significance in a UK – and particularly English – context? Well, as with a great deal of policy thinking in UK government, nearly all of the developments in education policy that we’ve experienced since the 1st Blair government start their life in the US (e.g. academies, free schools, student loans, assessment, etc, ad infinitum). Very often the policy terminology is altered to make it seem/sound British but the ideological underpinning and the planned/assumed outcomes are much the same. Consequently, it won’t be long before de Vos’s extreme policy options are picked up by similarly minded extreme neoliberals here. And probably with as little knowledge of education as Betsy de Vos has. That is of course not the point, as only ideology and what that tells you about policy choices matter (as we see on a daily basis with this government).
Anyway, for those who might be despairing after what’s gone on with Brexit, Corbyn and our own spineless politicians and want evidence that real, courageous, politicians still exist I recommend watching the first 10 to 15 minutes of Warren’s speech (or if you have time the whole thing). Superb!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SvmCaPSWX0
I watched some
I wish she had stood for President
I have seen clips of this. I first heard of Elizabeth Warren a few years ago when staying with some dear American friends. They were lukewarm about Hillary but said that the person they wanted to stand for president was Elizabeth Warren. They have always had good judgement and I am now very much a fan.
Regarding Brexit I alternate from depression to anger. Sadly depression today. One item of good news is that Wikipedia as part of the clampdown on fake news and alternative facts has banned the Daily Mail on grounds of ‘reputation for poor fact checking and sensationalism’
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website?CMP=fb_gu
Sean, I have to say I share your sentiments, though sadly I err toward depression more than anger – but that’s a wider issue and will lift. However, Wikipedia blocking the Daily Hate was a moment that made me smile.
Or if you have an hour watch Warren’s speech from 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
A lawyer’s take on what Raghuram G. Rajan described as ‘let them eat credit’.
The post-1815 years were notorious for the ‘Six Acts’ – very repressive. There was widespread discontent, because of disruption and poverty. Remmeber ‘Peterloo’ (Manchester). There was a war on the poor.
Those of you who have heard me drone on (have to admit it, it has been somewhat “ad nauseam”)) about the post 2010 Governments being “the most deceitful, dishonest cruel and corrupt” in 200 years now have my reasons for saying so in Mike Parr’s and David Harries’s posts above – the parallels between Lord Liverpool’s savagely corrupt administration and the Cameron/Clegg/May tragi-comedy are truly extraordinary.
But the really important thing to grasp is that this was the Tory plan, from way back, almost certainly something Cameron inherited from the Thatcherite alt-right – to turn the clock back 200 years, and to erase from history ALL the achievements of not only the 20th century, but even on the 19th – and to return Britain the neo-feudal state that it was in 1817, where membership of a Union and anything that could be construed as meeting together to oppose such feudal tyranny was met with the full force of the feudal state, as the Tolpuddle Martyrs could testify, even though their punishment occurred after Lord Liverpool’s fall from power – indeed, after the Great Reform Act. The virulent responses of the system were – and now soon again will be – still active.
It may be true that there was really only a façade of “democracy” in the intervening years, but it did at least on occasion, and particularly in the years between 1945 and 197, manage to deliver something like a democratic system based on the common good. Now we face a situation in which even the façade will be ripped away, to leave only a “magic shadow show”, in which “democracy” will continue to exist, but only at the level of some ritual enactment, perhaps with tourists attending the galleries of the House of Commons to watch the pantomime of “democracy” acted out, while the real government – as in Cosimo Medici’s Florence – will take place behind closed doors, in mercantile exchanges between patrons and clients, enforced by bully boys and other “heavies”.
As you will have gathered, I’m not feeling wildly optimistic at present. If only Bernie Sanders had won the nomination, and had Elizabeth Warren as his Vice President, and obvious successor. But the Democrat “establishment” won a Pyrrhic victory against Sanders, allowing the accession of a dangerous mediocrity such as Trump, concerning whom, I will forebear to invoke “Godwin’s Law”, since the parallels are too painful to contemplate.
I have never felt that you drone at all Andrew to be honest.
In retrospect the whole Brexit fiasco will be seen as revolving around one man Jeremy Corbyn who was a closet Leaver whilst pretending not to be. Corbyn could have organised cross-party opposition to the terms of the Conservative’s EU Referendum making it advisory and subject to a second referendum to vote on the terms negotiated or default WTO terms.
Once, anger was considered vice rather than a virtue.
Well, times change
And Quakers have always been quietly angry when at their best
True. And George Fox was very angry. But, as a fellow quaker, can I suggest that negative emotions like anger are not the best motivations when pursuing social reform? Positive feelings like benevolence and concern are most likely to achieve a positive outcome…
They motivate my anger
Your headline prompts me to post this quote: “Don’t give up on your ideals. Don’t compromise. Don’t turn to expediency. And for heaven’s sake . . . don’t get cynical.”
The author? Ronald Reagan. Different ideals for different folk. Wisdom is being able to sort the wheat from the chaff or, in Biblical terms, recognising false prophets. There seems little doubt that we’re teetering on the edge of an Age of Darkness, which will pass eventually but at what cost? Not since the end of WW2 has there been a greater need for enlightend leadership. Whence cometh it? The ‘right’ solution necessitates a combination of Quaker social activism and Buddhist compassion – both in short supply in the corridors of power. I’ve gone beyond anger & depression and have entered into a permanent state of frustration. To end with another quote: “The Hamptons are not a defensible position” (Mark Blyth). So … it’s a winnable war but it’ll be one of attrition.
Thanks
Agree with that made sentiment
I just get furious with the way this debate just concentrates on having a go at Labour when this is an entirely Tory mess. How does anybody think you can just ignore a referendum? Does anybody think that if we held another referendum tomorrow it would come up with anything other than a much increased Leave vote?
Why are we not talking about the Tory MPs who believe, as they said before the referendum that the UK cannot prosper outside the EU? I don’t expect them to block Article 50 itself, but why could Remain supporting Tory MPs in Remain voting constituencies not support the amendments to commit the Government to negotiate the full benefits of the single market?
Why could they not support amendments safeguarding the EU nationals living here and amendments committing the Government to safeguard Brits living in the EU?
Why could Tory MPs who supposedly believe in Parliamentary sovereignty not support amendments to give Parliament a final say on any deal? How could Tory MPS who posed in front of a bus that promised £350 million per week extra for the NHS vote down an amendment that committed the Government to providing £350 million per week extra for the NHS?
That is the argument we should be making, not endlessly dissecting an opposition which cannot defeat a majority Government without a Tory rebellion and which is faithfully reflecting differences among its own voters.
I think I make my concerns with leaving the EU amply clear
For the record, I think my lack of enthusiasm for May’s government is apparent
But I think it quite reasonable to also then say, as someone not a member of any political party, that Jeremy Corbyn is a hopeless leader of the opposition with no prospect of dislodging an awful government, because objectively that also seems to be true
The answer is Labour need to sort it
Or we need a new party to oppose the government