March in London on the 26th?
- Thread starter Tummy
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Soldato
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D'oh!! Quoted myself instead of editing my post!! Ignore
Soldato
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I don't agree. The media have made it clear that the trouble was separate from the real march, however, they have definitely had more coverage of the trouble than the TUC march.
What I'm saying is that those who aren't politically aware, or politically interested will be well aware of the troubles but may not know that the two are unrelated. It's easy for someone who didn't spend Saturday watching news 24 and who just picks the sun on Monday to see big pics of coppers covered in paint to think that 'The March' or 'The Protest' was the cause of all the trouble.
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Nice non-sensationalist coverage from the BBC:
0.4-0.8% of the population is 'huge'. There were double-quadruple that for the Iraq war march.....
0.4-0.8% of the population is 'huge'. There were double-quadruple that for the Iraq war march.....
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In fairness to the BBC, it was a huge protest march. There have been bigger, of course, but a few hundred thousand people is nothing to turn your nose up at.
The wording doesn't suggest those involved represent a significant proportion of the population, which obviously isn't the case
Simply due to the fact that our tourist TRIP didn't take us where the march went. Everywhere we planned on visiting was taken over by thugs acting like animals. If out trip was planned on the other side of town then I wouldn't have taken any photos of any of the days protest events, I certainly wasn't planning on going out of my way to go see a march I had no interest in.
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Think we've simply got a difference of opinion then dude. I was watching BBC News all day yesterday, and from about half one the vast majority of the coverage was about the idiots occupying places and fighting the old bill.
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Chris [BEANS];18768636 said:
Sky News spent 99% of its coverage on the minority of idiots causing trouble.
But then again no one can be shocked by their sensationalism of everything.
So, was yesterday a 'huge stepping stone' or another tantrum which will be swept under the carpet and forgotten about?
I know which one my money's on.
fair enough but you picked the wrong day to visit london lol
What reality do you actually live in?
What movement are you referring to?
I highly suspect that no-one except a few misguided fools would want anything to do with your Marxist idealism ruling their lives, in fact I would expect that if by some strange and improbable quirk of fate your dystopic view of how we should live ever comes to pass you would see far more that a few hundred thousand people with nothing better to do marching against the Government.
I would expect that it would be only a few hundred thousand that didn't march.
haha that was great. Would read again
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Captain Planet, the horse wasn't the Black Bloc's... i don't know who's it was, but they had permission to burn it.
Right, now Tummy:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/03/27/watch-ukuncut-occupation-of-fortnum-mason-was-peaceful/
If you don't like to shoot people down for having an alternative opinion then what makes this different? I accept, i haven't argued the toss very well in this thread so far, but we'll see what we can do about that.
The March was a brilliant step forward, and i wouldn't have missed it, but i don't think anybody was under the illusion that it was going to change anything. Not by itself at any rate. So what does it mean? It means that people know what the cuts are going to do to them and they don't like it. They don't like it enough to do something about it. It means that the majority of people are against the current governmnet (wasn't there a poll saying 53% of people supported the march). But how many of us actually know what the alternative is?
All Ed seemed to have to say on the matter is that we could cut later. That's not solving the problem, that's just spreading it out. So what is the solution? As i said before, it boils down to two things - one, that we don't need cuts to get out of the capitalist crisis we find ourselves in, and two, that we don't need the capitalist system that caused the mess and the problem we find ourselves having to deal with at the minute.
Lets explore the capitalist side of things first, and the effect of spending cuts by the government. What do they do? Well for starters it reduces the amount of money the government spends in the short term. Does this help to reduce debt? Perhaps slightly in the short term. Great then, you might say, lets do it! The government obviously has. But that's ignoring the real implications of these actions. Yes, there is the obvious answer that people will suffer, some will die as a result of 'reforms' to the NHS and thousands will loose their jobs. But everybody will suffer as a result of this. They will suffer by having less money because of it. And if they have less money then they will spend less money. And if they spend less money then less money goes into the economy. Through that the government themselves get less money. For every pound 'invested' in arts you get two back. It's a similar story for other industries. Actual result of this? Cut government spending and you reduce the amount of money the government has. All it really does is increase the gap between rich and poor.
Society benefits from University education. So society should pay for it. What other benefits do we get from society? Public toilets? Libraries? Healthcare? We scrap these now then however later down the line people are going to start asking "why don't we have these things?" after all, other countries aren't. Do we want to make ours a worse country compared to others? The government do. So they're going to spend money getting them back. They're going to spend a lot more money than we ever saved in getting rid of them. Result of this? Net loss.
There lies a very valid argument against the government. So what do we do about it? Well in a 'democratic' society that we supposedly live in you vote for a different one. It's not likely that the conservatives are going to get another term, since thankfully the majority of conservative voters at the previous election are not 'tories'. There's no way in hell the Lib Dems are going to get more than a third of the votes they got. What does that leave? Labour? Great, another fifteen years of a party that essentially is the conservatives but nobody cares enough to do anything about it. It's the perfect recipe for apathy. No, the abolition of Clause 4 spelt the death knell for Labour, if it ever had a chance it was in that. But they will get in again, and they will continue the cuts, and people will still suffer, but they will just sigh and say "oh well, at least we don't have a tory government". Is this government ever going to accept that there is an alternative? No. Is it going to act in it's own interests whatever happens? Yes.
What it boils down to is that any party can say whatever they want when they're in opposition, and that's what gets them elected, but when they actually get in power what you see is that the country isn't ruled by people, it's ruled by money. Be it through the banks controlling the amount of money that gets printed and creating artificial electronic money that means the total amount of debt in the world is greater than the total amount of money or through budgetary shortfalls they will never make any sort of sensible difference or act on their promises. Vote for any colour you like, it will be the same shade of turd brown when it comes out the other end.
Also, what you have to consider is that a huge amount of this national 'debt' is 'owed' to extremely rich individuals, who will be extremely rich if we pay it back and extremely rich if we don't. But the country isn't ruled by people. It's ruled by money
Is this the biggest deficit ever? No. Is it the biggest deficit out of all 'western' countries? Not by a long shot. Is it the biggest deficit we've had in say... George Osborne's lifetime? No. Is it an excuse for creating a larger class divide, as the right wing rich always want to do? Damn right it is.
And the alternative to this? Don't. Don't pay it back. Don't keep the idea of money. Take your pick, it's only money - it doesn't matter. What matters is people. And people can do anything they want to. The only real solution not just to the spending cuts, but to all the problems in the world today - poverty, suffering, inequality, climate change and very importantly i think, the fact that life for most people becomes not the beautiful unimaginable thing that it really is, but a dull tedium of sleep, eat, school, drive, work, tele, chips, bed. It all blends into one. Just like you learn how to breathe when you're a baby and then it becomes second nature to you, you don't realize you're doing it so does everything in life. That's the reason time passes faster for you as you get older, not because you've occupied more of it, but because you've got used to this horrible 'schedule' that our society forces you to take part in. I for one find that disgusting.
So what can we do about it? Revolution. And believe you me, it will not take the form of a peaceful march through London, no matter how many people turn up. We tear down everything that makes up this society and build a completely new one from scratch. Your question will ultimately be "what would we replace it with". In the most basic way a society based on principles of equality, fairness and one in which How do we do this? Well for starters we get rid of money, as a symbol of exploitation - money is the tool through which those who are too lazy to work get others to do it for them, and there's no way i can explain this to you better than this, so i'll link you to the fabulous works of Robert Tressell:
http://prahalathan.blogspot.com/2006/01/great-money-trick.html
To most this society takes the form of either Communism, Socialism or Anarchy, which mean slightly different things to everybody but ultimately boil down to the same thing (apart from Socialism and Anarchy, which is a matter of if people think we can go from a society with state and class to one without while the concepts of such things still exist, but that's for a different time). That is one where people do not do what they have to do to survive, but what they want to do to enjoy life. The fact of the matter is this: nobody does nothing. Everybody has something they want to achieve in life, some hobbies they enjoy doing or something that gives them happiness. Some people like being farmers, some chefs, some like organizing and some like experimenting. Some like exploring, others making. That list goes on for ever, and there is such a variety of human desires that the needs of humanity will be fulfilled, either directly or indirectly. Space travel, irrigating the deserts, building cities that aren't ad hoc and disorganized but have a sensible plan - you say they would all be possible if we had the money, but we don't? Well i say all you need is the desire to do such things and people willing to do it. And people are willing to do it, people want to do it. It's this capitalist society that's holding them back. Everybody who doesn't work in the production of the necessities of life should be working in creating the benefits of civilization, because it stands to reason that these two things are all that really matter. The difference being that it wouldn't be stuck with the stigma of 'work', of it being something that has to be done, but something that wants to be done and that you can get enjoyment from - people would enjoy getting out of bed in the morning, and if somebody doesn't then we've clearly got our priorities wrong. We could change that though, because it would be a democratic society, one that, unlike ours, gets things done based on the will of the people, not the select few. One that is based not just on the individual but on the community.
The human nature argument against Communism, Socialism or Anarchy is annulled simply by the fact that it doesn't exist - everything you do you learn. You learn how to breathe. You learn how to walk. And most importantly (for this argument at least) you learn how to think. Even if there are 'evil' individuals that aren't influenced by severe mental problems then look at the world around you. You can't seriously say that that's the reason that these alternatives won't work, because that's the reason this society doesn't work! It doesn't only allow people to exploit others for their own gain - it encourages it. It requires it! Socialism doesn't further this problem, it solves it!
Despite what i may have said earlier, there was 'violence' at the march. But what makes that a bad thing? It was targeted at inanimate objects that are symbols of our struggle, symbols of those who got us into this mess in the first place or symbols of what's stopping us from getting out of it without damaging the working class. Any protest which uses force proportional to the cause is just, and the force used was definitely proportional. It would have been proportional if we'd broken into Downing St. and dragged Cameron, Clegg and Osborne onto the streets to face a popular trial. What wouldn't have been acceptable? Attacking people or their livelihoods that have no relation to the cause.
I hope that goes some way towards bridging the gap between us, and i assure you i don't wish to attack anybody who went on the march or is simply against the cuts. At the very least it might help you to understand my viewpoint a little more.
Highlight of the march for me? Shaking Billy Bragg's hand
And FYI, i'm replying to Tummy because i care what they think. As for posts by right wingers on here... i don't think i'll bother
Bloody 'ell that's a lot of writing, i hope it makes sense
Which is frightening since i could write a hell of a lot more...
Right, now Tummy:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/03/27/watch-ukuncut-occupation-of-fortnum-mason-was-peaceful/
If you don't like to shoot people down for having an alternative opinion then what makes this different? I accept, i haven't argued the toss very well in this thread so far, but we'll see what we can do about that.
The March was a brilliant step forward, and i wouldn't have missed it, but i don't think anybody was under the illusion that it was going to change anything. Not by itself at any rate. So what does it mean? It means that people know what the cuts are going to do to them and they don't like it. They don't like it enough to do something about it. It means that the majority of people are against the current governmnet (wasn't there a poll saying 53% of people supported the march). But how many of us actually know what the alternative is?
All Ed seemed to have to say on the matter is that we could cut later. That's not solving the problem, that's just spreading it out. So what is the solution? As i said before, it boils down to two things - one, that we don't need cuts to get out of the capitalist crisis we find ourselves in, and two, that we don't need the capitalist system that caused the mess and the problem we find ourselves having to deal with at the minute.
Lets explore the capitalist side of things first, and the effect of spending cuts by the government. What do they do? Well for starters it reduces the amount of money the government spends in the short term. Does this help to reduce debt? Perhaps slightly in the short term. Great then, you might say, lets do it! The government obviously has. But that's ignoring the real implications of these actions. Yes, there is the obvious answer that people will suffer, some will die as a result of 'reforms' to the NHS and thousands will loose their jobs. But everybody will suffer as a result of this. They will suffer by having less money because of it. And if they have less money then they will spend less money. And if they spend less money then less money goes into the economy. Through that the government themselves get less money. For every pound 'invested' in arts you get two back. It's a similar story for other industries. Actual result of this? Cut government spending and you reduce the amount of money the government has. All it really does is increase the gap between rich and poor.
Society benefits from University education. So society should pay for it. What other benefits do we get from society? Public toilets? Libraries? Healthcare? We scrap these now then however later down the line people are going to start asking "why don't we have these things?" after all, other countries aren't. Do we want to make ours a worse country compared to others? The government do. So they're going to spend money getting them back. They're going to spend a lot more money than we ever saved in getting rid of them. Result of this? Net loss.
There lies a very valid argument against the government. So what do we do about it? Well in a 'democratic' society that we supposedly live in you vote for a different one. It's not likely that the conservatives are going to get another term, since thankfully the majority of conservative voters at the previous election are not 'tories'. There's no way in hell the Lib Dems are going to get more than a third of the votes they got. What does that leave? Labour? Great, another fifteen years of a party that essentially is the conservatives but nobody cares enough to do anything about it. It's the perfect recipe for apathy. No, the abolition of Clause 4 spelt the death knell for Labour, if it ever had a chance it was in that. But they will get in again, and they will continue the cuts, and people will still suffer, but they will just sigh and say "oh well, at least we don't have a tory government". Is this government ever going to accept that there is an alternative? No. Is it going to act in it's own interests whatever happens? Yes.
What it boils down to is that any party can say whatever they want when they're in opposition, and that's what gets them elected, but when they actually get in power what you see is that the country isn't ruled by people, it's ruled by money. Be it through the banks controlling the amount of money that gets printed and creating artificial electronic money that means the total amount of debt in the world is greater than the total amount of money or through budgetary shortfalls they will never make any sort of sensible difference or act on their promises. Vote for any colour you like, it will be the same shade of turd brown when it comes out the other end.
Also, what you have to consider is that a huge amount of this national 'debt' is 'owed' to extremely rich individuals, who will be extremely rich if we pay it back and extremely rich if we don't. But the country isn't ruled by people. It's ruled by money
Is this the biggest deficit ever? No. Is it the biggest deficit out of all 'western' countries? Not by a long shot. Is it the biggest deficit we've had in say... George Osborne's lifetime? No. Is it an excuse for creating a larger class divide, as the right wing rich always want to do? Damn right it is.And the alternative to this? Don't. Don't pay it back. Don't keep the idea of money. Take your pick, it's only money - it doesn't matter. What matters is people. And people can do anything they want to. The only real solution not just to the spending cuts, but to all the problems in the world today - poverty, suffering, inequality, climate change and very importantly i think, the fact that life for most people becomes not the beautiful unimaginable thing that it really is, but a dull tedium of sleep, eat, school, drive, work, tele, chips, bed. It all blends into one. Just like you learn how to breathe when you're a baby and then it becomes second nature to you, you don't realize you're doing it so does everything in life. That's the reason time passes faster for you as you get older, not because you've occupied more of it, but because you've got used to this horrible 'schedule' that our society forces you to take part in. I for one find that disgusting.
So what can we do about it? Revolution. And believe you me, it will not take the form of a peaceful march through London, no matter how many people turn up. We tear down everything that makes up this society and build a completely new one from scratch. Your question will ultimately be "what would we replace it with". In the most basic way a society based on principles of equality, fairness and one in which How do we do this? Well for starters we get rid of money, as a symbol of exploitation - money is the tool through which those who are too lazy to work get others to do it for them, and there's no way i can explain this to you better than this, so i'll link you to the fabulous works of Robert Tressell:
http://prahalathan.blogspot.com/2006/01/great-money-trick.html
To most this society takes the form of either Communism, Socialism or Anarchy, which mean slightly different things to everybody but ultimately boil down to the same thing (apart from Socialism and Anarchy, which is a matter of if people think we can go from a society with state and class to one without while the concepts of such things still exist, but that's for a different time). That is one where people do not do what they have to do to survive, but what they want to do to enjoy life. The fact of the matter is this: nobody does nothing. Everybody has something they want to achieve in life, some hobbies they enjoy doing or something that gives them happiness. Some people like being farmers, some chefs, some like organizing and some like experimenting. Some like exploring, others making. That list goes on for ever, and there is such a variety of human desires that the needs of humanity will be fulfilled, either directly or indirectly. Space travel, irrigating the deserts, building cities that aren't ad hoc and disorganized but have a sensible plan - you say they would all be possible if we had the money, but we don't? Well i say all you need is the desire to do such things and people willing to do it. And people are willing to do it, people want to do it. It's this capitalist society that's holding them back. Everybody who doesn't work in the production of the necessities of life should be working in creating the benefits of civilization, because it stands to reason that these two things are all that really matter. The difference being that it wouldn't be stuck with the stigma of 'work', of it being something that has to be done, but something that wants to be done and that you can get enjoyment from - people would enjoy getting out of bed in the morning, and if somebody doesn't then we've clearly got our priorities wrong. We could change that though, because it would be a democratic society, one that, unlike ours, gets things done based on the will of the people, not the select few. One that is based not just on the individual but on the community.
The human nature argument against Communism, Socialism or Anarchy is annulled simply by the fact that it doesn't exist - everything you do you learn. You learn how to breathe. You learn how to walk. And most importantly (for this argument at least) you learn how to think. Even if there are 'evil' individuals that aren't influenced by severe mental problems then look at the world around you. You can't seriously say that that's the reason that these alternatives won't work, because that's the reason this society doesn't work! It doesn't only allow people to exploit others for their own gain - it encourages it. It requires it! Socialism doesn't further this problem, it solves it!
Despite what i may have said earlier, there was 'violence' at the march. But what makes that a bad thing? It was targeted at inanimate objects that are symbols of our struggle, symbols of those who got us into this mess in the first place or symbols of what's stopping us from getting out of it without damaging the working class. Any protest which uses force proportional to the cause is just, and the force used was definitely proportional. It would have been proportional if we'd broken into Downing St. and dragged Cameron, Clegg and Osborne onto the streets to face a popular trial. What wouldn't have been acceptable? Attacking people or their livelihoods that have no relation to the cause.
I hope that goes some way towards bridging the gap between us, and i assure you i don't wish to attack anybody who went on the march or is simply against the cuts. At the very least it might help you to understand my viewpoint a little more.
Highlight of the march for me? Shaking Billy Bragg's hand
And FYI, i'm replying to Tummy because i care what they think. As for posts by right wingers on here... i don't think i'll bother
Bloody 'ell that's a lot of writing, i hope it makes sense
Which is frightening since i could write a hell of a lot more...
oh I don't doubt they were careful when they were inside, but I saw them getting in and then more people kicking off
T'wasn't as peaceful as they're making out.Superewzer
Big problem, human nature and greed, your utopia will never ever happen. The current system is unfair, but a lot fairer than some others.
You want to take down the rich and write off the debt, but what about the little people with savings built up over a lifetime?
The system has to survive and will, the problem is the welfare budget which has ballooned out of control.
I agree that we are governed by money and all main party politicians are the same.
I think we need to disconnect parliament from the city of London.
Big problem, human nature and greed, your utopia will never ever happen. The current system is unfair, but a lot fairer than some others.
You want to take down the rich and write off the debt, but what about the little people with savings built up over a lifetime?
The system has to survive and will, the problem is the welfare budget which has ballooned out of control.
I agree that we are governed by money and all main party politicians are the same.
I think we need to disconnect parliament from the city of London.