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Having spoken to a lot of Green fellas and met Patrick Harvie in person, I can confirm that they are not at all loonies and are actually some of the most genuinely nice people in politics. Often horribly misrepresented though.
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Oct 1, 2014 18:18
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Coohoolin posted:Again, the Scottish Greens are a completely different organisation than the Green party down in England. That is very true, I just imagined they co-operated closely enough that their policy might be more or less the same. Is this not the case?
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Oct 1, 2014 18:43
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I just read Combat Liberalism and actually really liked it. Mao was smarter than people give him credit for. The concept of 'unprincipled peace' as a negative is a good one.
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Oct 7, 2014 13:27
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Here's feminism in a nutshell: woman and men are equally cool and good and capable and should be treated as such. That's it. It is not complex at its root. Therefore, if you believe in equality and are not an arsehole, you are a feminist. It is nothing more than a subdivision of egalitarianism. If you believe in one you believe in the other. It isn't a label you adopt for yourself, it's an external description that applies to you or not based on your beliefs. To think any other way is just as harmful as discrimination itself, because you put up barriers between a perceived 'us' and 'them'. Self-described 'feminists' who reject this approach and/or refuse to accept their position within a wider egalitarian movement are absolutely as much part of the problem as those whose oppression they argue against. So yes, men can be feminists. Absolutely. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous. HorseLord posted:They certainly can support those things, but a rich man offering help to the poor doesn't make him poor. How the hell does this make sense? A rich man can't become a poor man, but can be a socialist. A man can't become a woman, but can be a feminist. Standing against oppression is not the exclusive preserve of the oppressed group, and it's that stance that's important. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 01:09
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HorseLord posted:How did you get this out of what I said? You are quite literally completely missing the point.
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Oct 8, 2014 01:17
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Guavanaut posted:HorseLord is (I think) saying that being pro-womens-rights doesn't automatically make you a feminist. Yes, it does.
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Oct 8, 2014 14:21
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JFairfax posted:Being pro-worker's rights doesn't automatically make you a Marxist though does it? No, but it does make you a Socialist, broadly speaking. Marxism is a very specific thing based on particular theory, feminism is not, and incorporates a lot of different ideas. e: Socialist may be the wrong word but you get what I mean. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 14:28
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HortonNash posted:They want to end all animal based biomedical research and ban research on GMOs and exotransplants. With the new influx of members, I am highly sceptical that the more objectionable policies like an outright ban on all animal testing will remain that way for long. (At least in Scotland, though I've not actually seen anything written down outlining any ban of this sort anyway)
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Oct 10, 2014 19:52
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HortonNash posted:My mate's been an active green (including taking part in debates at conferences) for about a decade, and he used to think exactly that, and thought progress was being made when they dropped the AltMed poo poo....and then Take Back Our Flour happened and he realised that the nuclear, GMO and animal rights policies are fundamental principles of the party and aren't going to change. I'd agree, but with regards the Scottish Greens I would say this is possible given the number of new members (who wholly outnumber the old). I was at a meeting the other day, and there was a very clear tension between the Old Greens (as I'm sure they'd hate being called) and the newer members (many of whom were ex-labour/RIC types) who were clearly considering the viability of rebranding the party to re-emphasise the red and downplay the green, so to speak. I'm still hopeful for the RIC conference and the possibility of a broader properly leftist party emerging that incorporates lots of different interests. I'd jump on that in an instant.
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Oct 10, 2014 20:53
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Private Eye posted:Sounds a bit like entryism Never said otherwise Umiapik posted:The Greens seem pretty cool to me..? I mean, 90% of their policies seem pretty good or very good, so I should vote for them, right? I'm struggling to find a reason not to, right now. Exactly. I disagree with the Greens on a lot of things but I disagree with them less on the whole than I do any other party with any chance of getting elected (shame about the SSP etc)
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Oct 10, 2014 22:36
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big scary monsters posted:The problem is that for the Greens the good social policies seem like an afterthought that they just happen to have alongside their real objectives of no nuclear plants or GMOs. Yeah this is probably right. I have high hopes that the two strands might be made more equitable, if not reversed, in Scottish Green's future, as the topics of dicussion were far more 'anti-poverty and pro-democracy and pro-socialism' at the last meeting than 'anti-science, nuclear, GMO'. In fact, nuclear was mentioned a few times but the others barely at all. Parties are always going to have parts you disagree with, and the Greens are technically speaking more democratic internally and open to change than most. With the new influx of members in Scotland, this seems possible. I'd be far more uncomfortable voting Labour because I disagree with them on the same number, if not more, things, and yet see no real opportunity to change that from within. Hungry posted:There is no great red hope. Everyone is poo poo. Buckle in, comrades, because there ain't buggery we can do. Probably this tbh. I'll wait till after the RIC conference to hang up my red flag though. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 09:52
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Margaret Thatcher posted:The Green Party have good policies, without a doubt, but they hardly form part of the big working-class political movement that we need. Sadly, Greens will fail to extend beyond their core vote of middle-class liberals. I still vote Labour at every election because they are the party the trade unions have backed, and still represent the labour movement at large. As soon as the unions jump ship, that will be time to stop supporting Labour. That's the challenge. Here's a good article on the potential for a broader leftist party incorporating lots of different interests (Greens included) in the near future: http://internationalsocialist.org.uk/index.php/blog/the-landscape-of-no-scotland/
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Oct 11, 2014 11:56
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Darth Walrus posted:It is a little bit awkward, though, that the Greens' love of pseudoscientific woo means that the most advertised part of their platform is the one they're weakest on. Is this true at all though? I've been exposed to zero 'pseudoscientific woo' as a recent member, active meeting attendee and long-time voter. Strikes me as the kind of thing said of the Greens to discredit them, not by them. There are far too many academics/students involved for it to be true in any meaningful way; plenty of sciencey types and plenty who disagree with a lot of the party line (i.e. animal testing) ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 12:17
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Lord Twisted posted:They cannot hold themselves out as Green if they officially back scaremongering and loving pseudoscience. Get with the goddamn program instead of the head in the clouds terminator seed GM is evil bollocks and maybe people will vote for them. I think the issue is less 'GM is bad', and more 'the way GM is currently used is bad'. I can be devestating if it isn't properly controlled and monitored and is released into ecosystems unchecked. Also massive problems with patenting seeds i.e. Monsanto. TinTower posted:Their transport policy is basically "what will make middle-class liberals in Camden happy", instead of effective environmental policies. They're generally in favour of railway electrification, for example, but that doesn't even get a look-in on their transport policy page. Again, I have to make the proviso that I'm speaking for the Scottish Greens, not the England and Wales party. I've been looking and funnily enough I can't actually find a recent clear policy document. I'd imagine they're rewriting one to account for input (which they have been taking) from new members. The policy pages of their website are notably sparse beyond a few broad points. Interestingly, what is there is almost exactly the sort of 'Green New Deal' Owen Jones advocates. He's going to have to abandon the Labour ship sooner or later (to who is anyone's guess. I think he'd do well running as an independent candidate in some areas though). ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 12:33
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nopantsjack posted:It is a loving shame, now is the time for such a populist platform and then just sit back and watch UKIP and the Tories shred themselves. This whole loving government has been a godsend for any decent opposition, not just the nasty party but the incompetent toffs of the nasty party. The campaign should very much be: these past few years have been a taster, imagine what will happen if they win a majority. This is all depressingly true. How to make Labour reclaim its ideological origin? Answers on a postcard. Baffles me because there are still plenty of properly socialist Labourites amongst the electorate and even within the party outside of the leadership.
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Oct 11, 2014 12:42
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Jack the Lad posted:e: Does anyone know of a calculator where you can see what a wage from a previous year would translate to in 2014 money? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=inflation+calculator+sterling
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Oct 14, 2014 12:32
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Answers Me posted:Does he acknowledge that he is himself a member of 'the establishment'? God I hate this argument. The guy has good ideas, and publishes them. What the hell is he supposed to do? Blog them and just hope people decide to read them. He is a writer and does have to make a living, and he operates in a system that forces him to extract that from his labour in one form or another. He literally can not win, people will either call him a hypocrite for being 'part of the establishment' if he does publish, or they'll write him off as another ineffectual, naive lefty if he fails to. He operates within a system, and has to abide by some of the basic rules of that system in order to get his message across and also eat. In his case that means he has to make use of publishing houses/write for mainstream newspapers/make TV appearances. Doing that is necessity, not hypocrisy. I mean gently caress, the 'establishment' is hardly a giant amorphous blob anyway.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:48
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Fangz posted:Also 'social media as an alternative news source' is basically a bad joke. Not necessarily, depending on how it's used. For comment/analysis it can be useful for providing alternatives to the orthodox position. For example, look at the Scottish independence referendum. Whatever your opinion on the issue specifically, the discussion around it demonstrated pretty clearly how the mainstream media can collaborate to control the terms of debate, and the potential of more informal sources to countering that. I'm still having to explain to my friends in England that my support of independence doesn't mean I'm a nationalist, which is very much the image that was put across in most of the time in the press/on TV. The cold hard facts of 'something has happened in a place' are going to be significantly more reliable coming from, and making use of the resources of, the mainstream. What those facts mean, however, may well not. e: Also, Gandhi might disagree with you on civil disobedience. I don't think it should be the whole plan, but as one aspect of a broader strategy it's sound.
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Oct 20, 2014 02:44
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Fangz posted:Don't you see the referendum as pretty strong evidence that Social Media as Alternate News just plain doesn't work? If you've failed to explain to even your *friends* that you aren't a nationalist, then how is that going to permeate the rest of the population? I'd see the complete opposite. A 45% vote for something almost universally condemned in the mainstream media is a pretty good showing. I never said I had failed to explain to my friends, only that explaining is something I have to do on occasion.
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Oct 20, 2014 13:40
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Fangz posted:But *where* are those 45% coming from? If it was truly social media, you'd have expected it to be coming from the internet savvy young, and from the more richer people with more access to technology. But in fact, despite a dominance in social media, the indies failed to win the 18-24 year old demographic. Their core demographic was actually 30-40 year old men, and the unemployed. That's slightly misleading. Young voters disproportionately supported independence. The 18-25's were in fact the only <55 group who voted on balance for No, and then only by 1%. The real swing factor was the always reliable OAP demographic. If pensioners were excluded it would have been a comfortable Yes victory. You are correct that there's clear correlation between income and voting intention. The poor were far more likely to go for a Yes vote. I'm not sure the argument that only the rich can afford to access social media really has legs these days, except in very extreme examples. I don't think social media was the deciding factor, but I do think it provided an accessible alternative platform for discussion incorporating perspectives that the mainstream media would not carry. The only pro-indy pieces I saw in print were a couple of opinion pieces in the Guardian/Independent (both of which retained a heavily pro-unionist editorial policy in general). It's not so much about online campaigns as such, but a space for free and open discussion. The people speaking may be biased, but the platform isn't intrinsically weighted on way or the other.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:13
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LemonDrizzle posted:Do you really not think there are any parallels between the two situations or any way to use lessons learned from the one campaign in the other? Note that the comparison between the two cases was raised by Barroso, who doesn't really have anything to gloat about one way or another. There are zero parallels between the two situations, because the UK/EU relationship and the Scotland/UK relationship are fundamentally different things.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:13
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kapparomeo posted:it was probably the most ethnically-diverse army in the war I highly doubt this is true.
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Oct 21, 2014 01:21
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Regarde Aduck posted:Well the same way the yess-sturmgeschütz-abteilung 69 were going to turn Scotland into a Scandinavian paradise within a year of independence. loving MAGIC. You're a loving moron.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:20
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BisonDollah posted:The BBC are horrific, I hate them with a passion. Green Party who are next to a box in the UK general election, I meant, btw. Thanks for the correction, you big beast you. Yeah, I'm a member (Scottish Greens), and you're right. There's a lot they should be doing that they aren't. Problem largely is that they have no money and their commitment to internal democracy does kind of slow down any unified position. North of the border at least they're also in the midst of a massive re-organisation given their ridiculous levels of new members. Additionally, they're inexperienced when it comes to large scale politics, being mostly focused (practically and ideologically) on the local level. It's an issue I have with the way it's currently run too, but it's inevitable given its context.
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Oct 27, 2014 14:29
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Ludicro posted:Perhaps I've just been left bitter and jaded by the current state of politics, but having read through the green party manifesto it comes across as a wishlist of ways to fix various things without any practical idea of how they are going to do it. Assuming they don't do a LibDem and abandon all their promises the second they sniff a shred of power. Can I get a link to that, I've never heard of some of those policies before.
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Oct 27, 2014 21:06
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Ludicro posted:http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Manifesto_web_file.pdf Yeah, politics is always about the least worst candidate. I disagree with the Greens on a lot less than I disagree with the rest.
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Oct 27, 2014 21:24
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Caroline Lucas is nice though isn't she. Even if she does (?) want the poor to stave and die of easily treatable diseases (apparently).
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Oct 28, 2014 00:39
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LemonDrizzle posted:If that's your main concern, an anti-nuclear party is probably the worst choice you could possibly make. To be fair the amount of money they want to put into renewable R&D is so much more than the current government's wildest dream that it might be viable. Nuclear is by far the preference given current research funding/distribution but it should always be seen as a necessary evil until something more viable and sustainable becomes available. If so much money was poured into renewables that developments occured rapidly, I guess the nuclear stopgap might become unnecessary. Seaside Loafer posted:Christ how many times do I have to say we dont all think that. I want 10 big gently caress off nuclear power stations and the radioactive waste products to be dripped into the mouths of baby seals. Also this.
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Oct 28, 2014 01:50
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Quick question for any older members here: do any of you know when the Jobcentre started employing bouncers? Curious for a little thing I'm writing.
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Oct 28, 2014 12:39
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Spooky Hyena posted:Anas Sarwar just announced his resignation, at the Labour dinner. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/anas-sarwar-resigns-deputy-leader-4538131 Source? e: just saw your edit, cheers
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Oct 30, 2014 21:35
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Labour to replace the Lords with an elected 'senate'? Hmm. Seems like an actual ballsy move from Miliband (of course he's lying and will never do this). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29857849
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Oct 31, 2014 23:44
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tooterfish posted:Yeah, it cannot be right that London has more peers than most of the rest of the country combined... So appoint more peers from outside loving London. They could do that right now if they wanted to. Yeah, ideally I'd like to see a wholly elected Lords but members are elected for life (with strict rules on regional/party representation) and replaced as they die or resign (though I'd like to see them able to be recalled if the situation demands it). So just a load of by-elections really. You make it democratic but you retain that useful long term isolation from the mainstream political process/concerns about re-election. In completely unrelated news, I've been tossing around the idea of my perfect utopian electoral system. Hit upon the strange idea of returning to a form of wealth franchise, but inverted. Only those who fall below a certain level are eligible to stand for parliament. It's kind of undemocratic, but it enforces a system that would be governed in the interests of the most vulnerable and needy. You choose between economic success and political power, effectively - which is more important to you? You're not barred from wealth, it just comes at a cost. Actually seems like a half decent (if impossible to implement) system.
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Nov 1, 2014 00:08
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