tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6090867976942931271..comments2024-03-29T09:14:53.583+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: The SPD's Unexpected ComebackPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-75438811723275908132021-09-01T20:50:49.861+01:002021-09-01T20:50:49.861+01:00I often disagree with "BCFG"'s maxim...I often disagree with "BCFG"'s maximalism (and also with other people's minimalism, "Chto delat?"), but some of his arguments "trigger" some quotes from me...<br /><br />«<i>It describes the capitulation of the old social democratic parties of Europe to neo liberalism and neo liberal ideological tenets.</i>»<br /><br />Jason Cooper, "The New Statesman", 2014-11: “<i><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/ed-miliband-s-problem-not-policy-tone-and-increasingly-he-seems-trapped" rel="nofollow">Miliband [...] might have to accept before long</a> – or the electorate will force him to – that Europe’s social-democratic moment, if it ever existed, is fading into the past.</i>”<br /><br />«<i>post industrial late capitalism, where manual workers are no longer required (hence toxic masculinity)</i>»<br /><br />Davis Landes, "The Wealth and poverty of nation", 1999: “<i><a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=Oo25BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT246" rel="nofollow">The mule spinners are a tough crowd to deal with.</a> A few years ago they were giving trouble at this mill, so one Saturday afternoon, after they had gone home, we started right in and smashed up a room-full of mules with sledge hammers. When the men came back on Monday morning, they were astonished to find that there was no work for them. That room is now full of ring frames run by girls.</i>”<br /><br />«<i>The West no longer needs miners, it need Marions in shopping malls</i>»<br /><br />David Willets, "Prospect Magazine", 2009-05: “<i><a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/david-willetts-margaret-thatcher" rel="nofollow">And behind it was an appeal to the consumer - usually female</a> — over the interests of the producer — usually male and unionised. This potent postwar mix contains many of the ingredients of “Thatcherism.”</i>”Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-25893662757093846002021-09-01T09:05:33.995+01:002021-09-01T09:05:33.995+01:00«Germany has a mostly-PR voting scheme, under the ...«<i>Germany has a mostly-PR voting scheme, under the same scheme the LibDems and UKIP would have got at some point at least 100 MPs</i>»<br /><br />There is also the critical non-detail and major political issue in England, the usual one: big property profits redistributed to tory voters from the servant classes.<br /><br />The UKIP in EU elections got for a while much better poll numbers, mostly taken from the Conservatives, but never got the same numbers in national elections, because most tory voters don't want risk any change that might threaten their big property profits. In Germany property is not such a critical major issue, and tory voters feel therefore they have a freer choice of right-wing party. In England as long as property profits are booming most tory voters would be loyal, even with PR, to any governing party that redistributes to them so much money from the lower classes.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-50233106353828590342021-08-31T18:54:04.662+01:002021-08-31T18:54:04.662+01:00«Apart from a preference for a Eurozone-wide finan...«<i>Apart from a preference for a Eurozone-wide financial transaction tax, there's little to suggest he is much of a social democrat.</i>»<br /><br />In England that by itself would get him treated by the media as an antisemitic trot monster.<br /><br />«<i>the Labour leadership are seeing their fondest dreams playing out across the North Sea.</i>»<br /><br />The critical detail is missing in the UK though: Germany has a mostly-PR voting scheme, under the same scheme the LibDems and UKIP would have got at some point at least 100 MPsm mostly taken from the Conservatives.<br /><br />As it is there is no risk of a large chunk of Conservative seats lost as a chunk of tory voters switched to an AfD-like party or to the LibDems. The risk instead exists for Labour to lose even more of its seats because of a switch to abstentions or a protest vote for the Greens in marginals.<br /><br />«<i>It might be interesting if German politics becomes so fragmented that nobody can form a coalition.</i>»<br /><br />It would become pretty similar to the Netherlands or to Italy.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-69697738847421904712021-08-31T13:09:43.699+01:002021-08-31T13:09:43.699+01:00Pasokification is also symbolic (admitting Greece ...Pasokification is also symbolic (admitting Greece is very very different to many Northern nations) of the demise of social democracy, in the old labour sense of the term. It describes the capitulation of the old social democratic parties of Europe to neo liberalism and neo liberal ideological tenets.<br /><br />In this regard the SPD are thoroughly Pasokified, as are Syriza incidentally!<br /><br />It should come as no surprise that at some point weariness with the CDU would let their fellow neo liberals take power. As Labour surely will in Britain within the next 15 years.<br /><br />Only in a revolutionary situation will a true non Pasokified party emerge and we are far far far from that point.<br /><br />The demise of the centrists, like the demise of the Liberal Democrats, has unfortunately been greatly exaggerated. In fact I would argue we have seen a rise of centrism and with it comes one of the most detestable political ideologies and set of values in all of human history. All socialists should see Starmer, Blair, Clinton, Yvette Cooper et al as the primary enemy.<br /><br />To be fair to the SPD et al they represent the vast majority of where the so called left is today, for example you Phil! So the principal enemy of the left is what is sometimes called the centre left.<br /><br />They are very woke, very ‘concerned’ with ‘women’s rights’ in mineral rich regions of the world and, well that is about it where concern is concerned with these reprobates!<br /><br />It is very much a development of post industrial late capitalism, where manual workers are no longer required (hence toxic masculinity) and where men need to be brought into a materialist feminine mindset (hence the normalisation of men putting on make up and buying beauty products). The West no longer needs miners, it need Marions in shopping malls.<br /><br />Meanwhile the IPCC report is already news from a bygone era! Yet the Taliban are still fucking everywhere!BCFGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-51919683005371511672021-08-31T08:44:36.214+01:002021-08-31T08:44:36.214+01:00Very interesting, but it does seem that it's g...Very interesting, but it does seem that it's going to be hard to predict what will happen in Germany, and also, of course, that anyone who thinks that German politics maps simply onto British politics is an idiot or a Starmer supporter (but I repeat myself).<br /><br />I suspect that the SPD is viewed as the best possible alternative to the CDU by conservatives in Germany, and, conspiracy theory spoiler alert, the conservatives surely have a lot of say over what the pollsters release.<br /><br />It might be interesting if German politics becomes so fragmented that nobody can form a coalition. Even more interestingly, if nobody could form a coalition without the support of the Left, with whom nobody wants to form a coalition because they are the Left.MFBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-6997885949566708852021-08-31T01:06:10.781+01:002021-08-31T01:06:10.781+01:00This pattern was also seen in the deteriorating pe...This pattern was also seen in the deteriorating performance of the Irish Labour party!<br />Funny how you missed that (but then again maybe not). <br />NollaigOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858419944310623926noreply@blogger.com