"Vote Tory or vote Labour to make a change" it's that thinking that keeps us on this roundabout. To really make a change people have to start voting for the other parties. It will eventually make a change, might take a while but that's better than the alternative.
There is very little difference between Trump and Biden. Sure,Trump is more brash and mouthy but Biden was put there because the state knows he is malleable and maintains the status quo while the US rampage around the planet causing mass murder and mayhem. You can't get a *** paper between the Republicans and Democrats these days,it's a one party system and failed state. Biden has reneged on his promise of the $15 an hour minimum wage (promised endlessly during the primaries which no doubt garnered many votes) and also reneged on the public option on healthcare. I could go on (and on) but won't...........going to have a cup of tea instead
Their whole country is a mess as far as I'm concerned. Gun laws, education, healthcare, poverty, huge debt, race relations, fundamentalist Christians trying to turn it into a theocracy, white supremacists and bigotry of all kinds, QAnon, Marjorie Taylor Greene... Basically everything that can be wrong is wrong.
Mario Balotelli: "I have nothing against monkeys because I am completely sure that a monkey is smarter than a racist.”
I agree to an extent but that's a bit oversimplistic. There are policy areas where it's the same result packaged differently but there are also differnces in ideology. It doesn't help that the system is so ingrained that neither side can make the changes they really want as they get blocked by the other side. Ans Democrats are often scared to push their ideas too far for fear of making themselves unelectable. But if nothing else even not brash and mouthy is an improvement But yeah, the political system in the US is broken, with the two party state, electoral system and everything decided by money and special interests. I wouldn't say it's perfect in the UK but it seems better than the US.
Most Americans seem unable to draw a distinction between Socialism and Communism so their left always has to tread carefully to have any chance of election. The same is true here to a lesser, but still significant, extent. To have any chance of getting in the Labour Party has to be seen to be centrist. I would always call myself socialist (with a small "s") but in my experience many people don't really know what I mean by that. It doesn't mean I align myself uncritically with anyone else under the same banner, and I'm certainly no communist. Marx and Engels saw Socialism as the the first step on the road to Communism, but political philosophy has come a long way since then. All I want is a greater social awareness, a fairer distribution of wealth, better controls to prevent exploitation, and policies designed to try and benefit the greater number of people. A government's responsibility is to everyone, not just its cronies and those who share its ideology. Imo, the problem with our right is that it is elitist and shackled to an illusion of "a great and glorious past". The US right borders on outright Fascism.
I genuinely do not understand the American paranoid approach to the commies. There was as much panic here after wwi. Americans have lots of unions ffs. Just don't get how a union is not Socialist in theory.
I imagine the right-wing propaganda machine has a lot to do with it. A number of Yanks I've spoken to on social media believe that communism is the ultimate aim of all left-wingers, and this threatens their illusion of "The Land of the Free" Even those I know personally - all decent people - tend to treat their own leftish tendencies as a bit of a guilty secret.
As Nozzer said the biggest difference between the Democrats and Republicans is their ideology. They are very loosely aligned with Labour and Tory here. Just like Labour try and keep the progressives, shall we say, happy, the Democrats are doing exactly the same. One big example of this was when the Democratic preacher Emanuel Cleaver opened the 117th Congress and ended the prayer with "Amen and Awomen" showing a complete lack of understanding for the word Amen which has nothing to do with men but means 'so be it'. Trying to be inclusive is one thing, ignorance and stupidity is another.
Well..... I am not really so sure about the parallels. The way i see it Labour here is a "mix" of communist leaning weirdos like corybn who were jackets with elbow patches etc and what can only be described as pink liberals who talk a good game but are really just about centrists. The democrats in the US are nothing really like this; they are on one hand extreme woke liberals who are seemingly going further than the civil rights agenda at this point and on the other capitalists who supposedly don't like federal interference with money making I can see on the surface where the current tories who have swung far far away from the ken clarke ilk (who descend from thatcher lest we forget) who were into europe for what they can get and a conservative/economically driven party that is now quite influenced (and currently dominated) by the likes of mogg who would equate very nicely with the tea party and such influences in the USA. Realistically the tories even admitted with the Bo Jo show this week that they were worried about their "contributors" not being happy the party animal was in trouble. I personally think they democrats are still pretty much as far right as the tories and far more libertarian than labour but a lot of the traits that trouble the republican party are shared by the tories however the republican party is about none notch left of a certain party from 1930s germany.
For anyone that hasn't seen, there is a update on the PL board about Tobes. Doesn't lik good im afraid... https://www.not606.com/threads/tobes.400466/page-5#post-15891977 ...
first past the post means we need a massive swing to "a.n.other" to even see an mp. the scummy UKIP couldn't get one MP with 3million voters. the system is blocking us. someone actually decent needs to stand up and then get enough votes in each constituency but people really seem to vote by party and party leader and not their local bribe taker
And if it's a safe seat then there's really no chance. Though the system does at least mean that every MP has been directly elected by their constituents rather than just being a name on a list to fulfil the proportional quota.
When he was first diagnosed, I was the only one who knew because he pm'd me asking for prayers. I think he told Donga soon after because they had both seen the same surgeon. He didn't want the news broadcasting so we respected his wishes. I pm'd him several times to check up on him and that just naturally stopped as he was participating regularly on here again although nowhere near as often. I presumed he was in remission and doing well and now I know the full extent of his illness, I feel really guilty and upset with myself for not getting back to him by pm more often. We had an up and down relationship, to say the least. The only thing worse than that continuing is when it stops because one half isn't there anymore. I have been praying for a miracle for him and my sincere hope is that he is still around but going through a very bad patch and will recover. Unless and until I hear differently, I'm keeping him alive in my thoughts.
It's because they don't understand the terminology. They're not educated in politics and history in general. They believe because the USSR had "socialist republic" in it's name that socialism means the same thing as communism. Amongst younger Millennials and Gen Z over here, I would say the majority is definitely socialist. Most would never call themselves socialist though because they think that is a synonym of communism. The Republicans very skillfully came up with the phrase "socialized medicine" to refer to national healthcare... It's a clever moniker since they got it to stick because it means the majority will never back it because it has "socialized" in the name. The same thing with "Obamacare". Two thirds of Americans say they support the "Affordable Care Act" but over 50% say they oppose "Obamacare"... This is despite "Obamacare" just being a label that Republicans manage to get applied to the "Affordable Care Act" (they're the same thing). It's all about labels and what Americans think the labels mean. Libertarianism is another funny one. In America people think it means "members of the far right who smoke pot". America's gen Z though would not be out of place in Europe. Give it another decade for them to get more numbers into voting age and I think American politics is going to change drastically. That strongly depends on what part of the country. In the NE there are a lot of unions, on the west coast there are some unions. In the middle and South they're almost not heard of. I used to work for a company in the steel business. We had plants all over the South and Mid West but whenever talk of opening up in a Northern or West Coast location came up it was quickly shot down. They were terrified that if they moved into a state with unions it might spread to their union-free locations.
I always vote for a person, not for a party. Corbyn is Labour. Johnson is Conservative... I wouldn't want my vote to go to getting either of them in office. Same as here in US. Lindsay Graham is a republican, Jessie Jackson is a democrat. I wouldn't want my vote going to either of them. If you're voting for party instead of person you don't have control of that.
