A Political Thread

[The Jones Boy]

And yet IS's ultimate aim is a worldwide caliphate without borders under Sharia Law. How does Corbyn reconcile this with blaming Western Government's foreign policy?

He doesn't have to, nobody has to... you're missing the point.
What the crazies choose to do after they have the opportunity to realise their own sovereignty, anywhere, is of no matter.
The horse has already bolted.
The big issue is still the same.
The West buddies up to a dictator or a tyrant or warlord, and eventually that relationship sours for what ever reason. Then that individual becomes a problem.
So the 'West' moves to eradicate the problem, and there is a vacuum of power where the crazies can get a foot hold and spread whatever their crazy ideology might be.
It doesn't matter if its crazy extremist Hindhu's in India
https://news.vice.com/article/chris...more-persecution-by-hindu-extremists-in-india
Chinese taoists attacking christian churches and worshippers
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world...hes-religious-winter-bid-destroy-Christianity
... or extremist Islamists
It's about gifting the crazies a chance to take root and spread their twisted philosophies.

You can point out all manner of crazy ideologies around the world from warped groups, however, they cannot exist unless they are able to take advantage of a particular set of circumstances and in the case of the middle east and North Africa, and Afghanistan, the 'West' has been creating conditions beneficial for the Islamic extremists to grow and develop power bases.

Oppresion creates terrorists/freedom fighters etc.
Change the foreign policy and deny these loonies the opportunity to thrive and it will all come to a grinding halt.

 

[General Melchett]

The problem with Labour is the process they have in place to determine who is leader. It's open to all party members and from my what I gather it's very easy to become a party member which leaves themselves to open to infiltration.

This can lead to a situation similar where a rugby or football head coach has completely lost the dressing room but retains the support of the fans. Should fans be choosing the head coach? Probably not. The Tories on the other hand allow sitting MPs (the players) to ultimately decide who should lead them. Look at Leicester City. Everyone thought their ***le win was down to Ranieri but it turns out he had effectively lost the dressing room and that really it was Craig Shakespeare holding things together in the background. Multiple players and coaches have come out and said as much since he left. The players and coaches knew it but the fans didn't.

I can see Corbyn refusing to resign after the election irrespecive of the result. I can also see him getting re-elected as party leader if there is another leadership contest so where does that leave them. It's dangerous to let fans choose the head coach when they don't see what goes on in the dressing room and on the training field.

 

[Which Tyler]

Mssr Macron loves WUMming Trump:
Walks towards him until Trump spreads his arms for a hug, blanks him, greet Merkel, and a few others, before finally shaking hands with Trump, and playing silly buggers with the handshake too.
The Don doesn't look terribly happy.



Probably more seriously though... it looks like the Russians have got fed up with Trump, and want rid: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.91b6ef52872f

Jared Kushner and Russia's ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser.

 

[The Jones Boy]

The problem with Labour is the process they have in place to determine who is leader. It's open to all party members and from my what I gather it's very easy to become a party member which leaves themselves to open to infiltration.

As opposed to the Conservatives which is highly regulated so you can't get in unless youre a snobby rich type with an 'acceptable' degree from an 'acceptable' university.
Ha Ha Ha , Oggy, it's meant to be a party for the people by the people.
Tony Blair hijacked the Labour Party and turned it into Tory-lite.
Thats fundamentally why Labour lost an incredible amount of seats in Scotland to the SNP.
They lost their way and the Scottish National Party saw it and exposed it and hammered them for it in the polls.

Under Corbyn there has been a cataclysmic wrestling match to get Labour away from the centre right MP's and it's been ugly and messy and thats why they are struggling.
However, it's good for the country if Labour actually represent their members. Anyone can join, you pay your money and get a vote.
Thats exactly how a party for the 'people' should be.
Under Blair, Labour was completely controlled by the Leadership and the MP's did as they pleased regardless of what their members or constituents desired.
The system of checks and balances disintegrated.

Corbyn is determined to change that and good on him for that.
The reason we have a Brexit situation is because David Cameron didn't have any compass for the ill will with which the country holds politicians.
He's just not very clever.
This was primarily because so many voters were disaffected with a first passed the post system where it was getting very difficult to tell the parties apart.
They felt they no longer had a voice.
Referendum comes along and Bam!
Out of Europe.
Sure immigration played a role, how the pompous EU leaders behave played a role, but fundamentally it was a protest vote because a huge swathe of the country do not feel represenrted by their MP's.
Having two parties that were difficult to tell apart by their policies etc is not good for the country.
Lets have some genuine contrast.

This can lead to a situation similar where a rugby or football head coach has completely lost the dressing room but retains the support of the fans. Should fans be choosing the head coach? Probably not. The Tories on the other hand allow sitting MPs (the players) to ultimately decide who should lead them. Look at Leicester City. Everyone thought their ***le win was down to Ranieri but it turns out he had effectively lost the dressing room and that really it was Craig Shakespeare holding things together in the background. Multiple players and coaches have come out and said as much since he left. The players and coaches knew it but the fans didn't.

Football isn't politics.
You're describing a corporate environment.
What you are saying is that the votes shouldn't mean anything. Once MP's are in they can do what they like, ignoring their election pledges to their constituents and ignoring policies placed in their party manifestos?
Really.
Why don't we just scrap any notion of democracy while we're at it.

I can see Corbyn refusing to resign after the election irrespecive of the result. I can also see him getting re-elected as party leader if there is another leadership contest so where does that leave them.

I think you're right, I think that is a very likely outcome.
It leaves the Blairites having to have a serious think about which party they want to belong to?
Labour or Conservatives or Lib-dems...
Labour is supposed to be a party that represents the working classes and it is supposed to have a more humanitarian, eco-friendly and dare I say it, slightly more socialist perspective on how to use public money to govern the country.
Thats their traditional role in the party line up.
It was hijacked as Tony Blair veered off toward the right...

It's dangerous to let fans choose the head coach when they don't see what goes on in the dressing room and on the training field.

The fans chose David Cameron and we got Brexit and we got 'Austerity' for 6 years that culminated in a BIGGER deficit and then we got Libya becoming a war torn law less state in chaos that directly provided the environment for miscreants to hand us the hideous outcome in Manchester.
Under tony Blair and this Conservative govt flats and houses have been allowed to become something only the rich will be able to provide for their children because the vast majority of young British people won't be able to get on the housing ladder.
Look at what happens when you let the fans elect war criminals and liars like Tony Blair and David Cameron.
It is indeed dangerous.
Be careful what you wish for Oggy.
This is what we call democracy.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Change the foreign policy and deny these loonies the opportunity to thrive and it will all come to a grinding halt.

IS derives it's legitimacy from the creation and sustaining it's Caliphate. For now protecting what territory they have is their priority. Western Foreign policy is just an excuse to launch attacks on the west because by it's very raison d'etre IS exists to spread to all Muslim lands so they are under a caliphate and to provoke the West to
Attack them so they can call on Muslims to come the Caliphate to defend it and it's warped ideology. The west in their eyes are Kafirs or "disbelievers" and deserve to die.

Don't forget circa 85% of 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunni. How many of those are frustrated men/women under 30 living in the Middle East/Africa because of the conditions they have lived in under Saddam, Gadafi, Al Assad etc? All ripe for IS to spread their ideology to this young, frustrated Muslim demographic. Not just because of Western Foreign policy, but because they are poor.

US/UK foreign policy may well have helped give rise to it, but now there is no turning back to what it gave rise to and trying shrink and eliminate the IS caliphate as part of the West's Foreign policy. Without a Caliphate IS loses it's legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of it's followers.

Too easy just to say change foreign policy now and say that the spread of the ideology will come to a grinding halt. How do you change it and change it to what? What Corbyn is arguing for is Appeasement of these terrorist ********. It didn't do Neville Chamberlain any good with Hitler.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Ha Ha, I was wondering when someone was going to trot out the Peace in our time, line...

It doesn't wash when the West has 'the Bomb', cruise missiles, daisy cutters, satellite tracking technology , drones, they own the skies, they have state of the art tanks, armoured cars, helicopters, fighter bombers, carrier based air options ad infinitum... and the Islamic extremists have ... Toyota pick ups with machine guns mounted on the back.
Woohoo.
IS are not even worth putting in the same league as a serious player. Let alone drawing a comparison of their abilities with a super power, and Germany were a super power in 1939 and they rolled over western europe and then eastern europe.
IS have rolled over the countryside in Syria and Iraq yet they have no presence in any major cities in Syria and the only one they might still be contesting by hiding inside the civilian population in Iraq is Mosul?
They were rife in Syria until Putin pulled out just a fraction of the heavy military he can bring to bear and gave them some serious beat down and trashed them, in the cities at least. Sent them packing.

Youre focusing on the symptoms.
There was no IS in Iraq under Saddam, (there were no weapons of mass destruction either but thats another matter) there was no IS in Libya under Gaddafi, he was a moderate and he kept the fringe elements out on the fringe, same with Assad.
These dictators did not tolerate extremists. They knew the danger they posed to their own regimes so they suppressed them and they didn't exist in these countries before Western intervention and removal (still pending in Assad's case...).
As soon as the West decided they wanted to intervene and tip the tyrant/despot of choice out of the picture, lo and behold, hey presto, the environment is now perfect for Al Qeada or IS

You said, " The west in their eyes are Kafirs or "disbelievers" and deserve to die."

Sounds very similar to how the Arabs felt about the Infidel 'Crusaders', during the crusades.
Nothing new here.
Wind the clock back 900 years and it was exactly the same mantra.

Bombing the arabs back into the stone age isn't working, it's only creating the ground for them to find more extremist recruits.
America NEEDS war.
It has an enormous industry that manufactures the weapons and ammunition.
No wars = no jobs.
Trump just sold $110 billion in weapons to the Saudis, so the Saudis can go and create an environment that will guarantee more extremists come out of Yemen.
Israel brutally oppresses Palestine, with a gift of $5 billion in military 'aid' every year from the USA... and the Palestinians grow up in a culture of hatred and so the fighting proliferates.
The military industrial complex cannot survive and make profit without war.
Check this link, economist Stacey herbert has some important facts in particular the part from 6 mins 15 seconds to 8 mins 45 secs.


So, the least we can do in the UK is say ok, the bombing isn't working. If you want to keep that policy in place then we'll take a rain check on it.
IS only managed to thrive in Syria and Iraq because Turkey was buying their cheap stolen oil in return for food and weapons.
Thats why there was a very testy time between Putin and Erdogan. Putin sussed out how IS were managing to keep campaigning in the field and saw the truck convoysflowing between Turkey and Syria, so he bombed the bejesus out of them and Erdogan got the right hump and shot down the Russian fighter bomber.
Remember that big international hoo-hah.
You can strangle IS by denying them access to markets for their stolen oil.
If the neighbouring Arab countries refuse to trade with IS then they are history.
You can't keep an army in the field without food and gas.
Step out of the conflict and let America get on with their agenda for the middle east.
Sure, it won't stop the attacks over night but it will make them far less likely in the future.
We don't need to be there and we certainly don't need to be creating childless families in manchester, or any part of the UK.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Corbyn would have a much easier time of it if he didn't have Abbott on his team or at least stop letting her go on Tele and Radio.

It's like no one wants to win this election.

Labour, Tories, SNP, Lib Dems have all scored own goals this election process it's so annoying. (Not mentioning UKIP as they always scored own goals.)

 

[General Melchett]

Football isn't politics.
You're describing a corporate environment.
What you are saying is that the votes shouldn't mean anything. Once MP's are in they can do what they like, ignoring their election pledges to their constituents and ignoring policies placed in their party manifestos?
Really.
Why don't we just scrap any notion of democracy while we're at it.

Not quite what I was getting at Jonesy. We see very few examples of 'healthy' democracy in the west these days where the public are given facts via an unbiased media which results in the winning party/candidate getting a fairly obtained mandate. Too many shenanigans involved that the public don't get to hear about and when the likes of Assange or Chomsky try to inform the public about such shenanigans they get stomped on and labelled as treacherous. What we are seeing is a trend where you can win an election if you have rich companies/individuals behind you and mainstream media in your back pocket. I think that most people who vote in elections and Brexit ref were voting based on emotion, sound bites and the things like the NHS sign on the bus. They need these types of voters because they are simply low hanging fruit who can be easily swayed if they are fed enough propaganda via the media. My point is that trusting the public to get the right result won't work if politicians put their shenanigans into practice via a biased media.

In the States, the DMC is meant to be the socialist party but they dumped their socialist values decades ago. Trump's strategists concluded that his only path to the Whitehouse was to target uneducated white trash with his anti-foreigner rhetoric and it worked perfectly. His win and Brexit were two outcomes that weren't in the script.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Corbyn would have a much easier time of it if he didn't have Abbott on his team or at least stop letting her go on Tele and Radio.

It's like no one wants to win this election.

Labour, Tories, SNP, Lib Dems have all scored own goals this election process it's so annoying. (Not mentioning UKIP as they always scored own goals.)

Diane Abbot makes me laugh.
I know she's not meaning to but she is such a liability in a live situation.
She's hilarious, and as I see most politicians as incompetent, I don't mind her because she does at least make me giggle, as long as I don't have to see more than 30 seconds of her.
Maybe Corbyn has her in the shadow cabinet because she does what she's told?
I wonder if he has no one else to choose from because the Blairites are so fickle, if he picks them for cabinet positions they flake out and bail and he's back to square one with another ruction for the media to feed on.
The Lib Dem guy is trying to hard, he makes a statement and then changes his tune immediately if the presenter/interviewer brings forth a different perspective.
Paul Nuttall is annoying, even when he's sticking pins into Teresa May for pinching UKIP's vote, he's difficult to listen to...
Corbyn seems to be finding his mojo, not that it will make any difference to the outcome, but it's nice to see him looking more comfortable on camera. He used to be very awkward.
For an old coot he's quite a quick learner.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Not quite what I was getting at Jonesy. We see very few examples of 'healthy' democracy in the west these days where the public are given facts via an unbiased media which results in the winning party/candidate getting a fairly obtained mandate. Too many shenanigans involved that the public don't get to hear about and when the likes of Assange or Chomsky try to inform the public about such shenanigans they get stomped on and labelled as treacherous. What we are seeing is a trend where you can win an election if you have rich companies/individuals behind you and mainstream media in your back pocket. I think that most people who vote in elections and Brexit ref were voting based on emotion, sound bites and the things like the NHS sign on the bus. They need these types of voters because they are simply low hanging fruit who can be easily swayed if they are fed enough propaganda via the media. My point is that trusting the public to get the right result won't work if politicians put their shenanigans into practice via a biased media.

In the States, the DMC is meant to be the socialist party but they dumped their socialist values decades ago. Trump's strategists concluded that his only path to the Whitehouse was to target uneducated white trash with his anti-foreigner rhetoric and it worked perfectly. His win and Brexit were two outcomes that weren't in the script.

Oh yeah, you're quite right.
It's depressing isn't it.??
I never cease to be shocked by how gullible people can be...
I never cease to be shocked by how much grief whistle blowers are getting when they are doing humanity a service.
For me, it's simple, if you want to know whats going on, watch all the media with a filter to sieve out the junk... just follow the money and you'll work it out.

 

[ncurd]

The Lib Dem guy is trying to hard, he makes a statement and then changes his tune immediately if the presenter/interviewer brings forth a different perspective.

Example?

 

[The Jones Boy]

The party debate that was missing the two biggest parties. Mr Farron was trying very hard to be everyones friend, except of course Mr Nuttall.

 

[ncurd]

Thats still an opinion not an actual example.

Farron (and the lib dems) agree with a large amount of nationalist/Green platforms which is why he agreed with them a lot during the debate. Part of our problem is we are struggling to get heard as a distinct voice.

Another problem is people(new members) are trying to drag us out to become a single issue party which is starting to become very worrying. Give it another election cycle and we might just be the pro-EU party with a share similar to the nationalist and greens. Honestly there's going to be real battle for the parties soul post this election and there will be a Social-Liberal faction that are pro internationalism but willing to give up stopping Brexit and even suggesting joing the EU in the near future. And the group that actually aren't too fussed about liberlism and just want back in the EU at any cost.

I was boyish about our chances of picking up a fair few seats this election but now even less so. The second referendum rhetoric just hasn't worked at all (even by most pessimistic thinking).

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

The whole Farron and gay people thing was odd.

 

[ncurd]

Been a problem since day 1. Most people don't understand just because you don't agree with something you don't think it's government place to legislate against it. Core tenant to liberalism but if Tim tried to explain it hed just get beaten with a stick about it (well more so that he has).

 

[Gavin]

Quite impressed by Corbyn on the debate. Looks a lot more relaxed than May when answering questions.

 

[ncurd]

Did better than he did against Andrew Neil, IRA still a problem but at least he believes in what he is saying and can explain it.

 

[ncurd]

May, you know when you've been Paxmaned!

 

[Gavin]

That was a classic from Paxman

 

[Gavin]

The embarrassment on the lads face who stood up to congratulate May with applause, but realised he was the only one standing up.