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Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
Fri Mar 18, 2016, 04:33 PM Mar 2016

"UK politics is turning really, truly fucking weird"

Last edited Fri Mar 18, 2016, 05:20 PM - Edit history (1)

In this OP I'd like to recover a conversation in a locked thread attached to a recently hidden OP (grave dancing) in GD, if neither party involved object, with a couple of questions:

1. Sibelian, what do you mean about Scotland not surviving? You mean with an independent leftwing-of-sorts agenda? -- edit: ah yes, I see you do.

2. Apart from the likes of Guardian & Torygraph comments sections, where could I go online to best observe what's going on in UK (until recently I've found US and of course Spanish politics much more internationally and personally... compelling, so haven't paid much attention to Thatcher/Blairite UK having been out of there these last 28 yesrs).

3. Any ideas as to where to go online for internationally-relevant exchange and development of important political ideas?


sibelian
32. Good luck to you. Being a disinterested party....

.... it's become less important to me now that UK politics is turning really, truly fucking weird. The left over here is fracturing also but in a far more dangerous way. I'm not convinced there will be any left wing ANYTHING in the UK (besides some in Scotland, which I can't see surviving much longer now either) before long. The LW papers are scrambling to try and reassert their authority over their base, which has been in open revolt for months.

But, yes. Bernie would be a good thing.


litlbilly
35. the Oligarchs have been in charge for so long, its gonna take more than one election
to fix it. In the UK, here and everywhere basically. We cant just lay down and give up


sibelian
39. I've had to face up to it. The problems are structural, not tribal.

Language is being distorted everywhere and everyone's slapping stupid pseudo-psychoanalytical labels on everything instead of actually analysing the subject to find out what's happening.

The Internet is in fact making it all worse, not better. SUBSTANTIALLY worse. It's dumbing everyone down to a terrible extent.

I have a very nasty feeling that most of what 's being posted around the lefty houses and written in the papers and blogged about and shared is going to turn out to be somewhat irrelevant.

I think Trump's going to win no matter who goes up against him.


litlbilly
41. I dont think that's the case. There is so much info on the internet it is where the future is.
It will just take time as well to sort itself out.


sibelian
50. But I don't think it *is* info.

It's just...

Junk.

Reflexive labelling. Circular firing squads. People habitually reinforcing simplistic slogans and meaningless soundbites, politics-as-lol-cat. Dumb bingo cards collecting your opponents arguments instead of addressing them.

Huge sections of demographics slotting themselves into behaviour patterns that consist of nothing more than banging your head against a brick wall.

And it's good news for advertisers. They are much happier with people banging their heads against brick walls than going elsewhere. More views for the advert.

I wonder if someone did a study comparing the *breadth* of Internet penetration these days in comparison with the past if they would find that people have a far greater tendency these days to stick to one or two favourite sites than go exploring...

I know that I see the same ideas being repeated over and over again in the same quarters far more than I used to.

I think the Internet as a medium for the exchange or development of ideas may be drawing to a close...

New political paradigms are not favoured in media that focus on simplistic messages...
3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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"UK politics is turning really, truly fucking weird" (Original Post) Ghost Dog Mar 2016 OP
Well, you run the risk of an alert for what some might construe as a callout thread, Denzil_DC Mar 2016 #1
Thanks again for the food for thought, Denzil_DC Ghost Dog Mar 2016 #2
Well, I think first of all, you must remember that poster doesn't actually think the UK should exist LeftishBrit Mar 2016 #3

Denzil_DC

(7,187 posts)
1. Well, you run the risk of an alert for what some might construe as a callout thread,
Fri Mar 18, 2016, 05:28 PM
Mar 2016

but sharing your hopes that we can springboard off that into a sensible discussion, I'll get a couple of points out of the way (and risk an alert myself for illustrative purposes).

Said OP who had his post hidden attracted my attention because we're from the same country - Scotland - but his take on the world differs from mine as much as if he were a martian.

He decried at great length the dangers of the baleful influence of Islam in our country when we have some 60,000-70,000 Muslims among a population of just over 5 million. He said he was worried about the safety of his cat-sitting neighbour at the hands of marauding Muslim refugees in the wake of the reported German molestations and worse, then couldn't understand why I defended Scotland and Scottish Muslims against what I saw as a seedy libel. Our Muslim population is of relatively long standing and is quite homogenous compared to some other parts of the country because of when they moved and settled - largely from Pakistan, largely comfortably middle-class and generally very aspirational. Our mosques have been investigated, and none of our Imams espouse or preach antisocial jihad. They have their own problems with younger members of the congregation trying to bring the old establishment more into line with the twenty-first century and counter entrenched patronage, but I see that as generational and a healthy development that they can sort out for themselves if given time. There are some identified problems with Muslim youth in Glasgow getting involved in gang culture, but that's more a Glasgow problem than necessarily a Muslim one.

Faced with that reality, I have to ask: What the hell do these people have to do before some of the more hotheaded among us get off their backs?

And as for refugees, in Scotland we're subject to UK government-imposed limits. We have long-standing issues with asylum-seekers, but they're to do with how appallingly they're treated, not how appallingly they behave. There's a modest refugee resettlement programme, which has seen families - heavily vetted, having spent substantial periods in refugee camps - installed in surplus social housing in locations like the Isle of Bute, and so far there don't seem to have been any serious problems apart from some predictable resentment from a vocal few that the likes of the Mail have given undue prominence.

Against this backdrop, said OP had been spending time on the Guardian's Comment Is Free section, and thus come to the firm conclusion from the trend of posts there that we were in an existential crisis about refugees and they posed a real threat that everyone was incensed about.

So, to cut this long story shorter, I'm hard put to take any of his own observations seriously, about the online world or the flesh-and-blood one outside our doors, having seen him swallowing whole an agenda that fit his own mindset and being unwilling to open up to alternative ways of seeing things.

That out of the way - me? I get less and less of my news nowadays from conventional media. I try to expose myself to it, as otherwise you don't know what others around you are responding to/talking about, but a lot of my information-gathering takes place via Twitter (where I don't even have an account). I've identified a number of people, and some journalists, whose judgment I have reason to trust from their past reactions, and I use them as a sort of network to sift through the vast amount of information out there. I'm not noticeably less well informed than when I used to avidly listen to/watch the news and devour broadsheets along with other sources. I get to act as my own editor and follow up stories that concern or interest me.

I see the shortcomings of conventional media as lying primarily at the editorial level - what gets covered in the first place - and then the slant that gets imposed on it.

DU has a similar role to play here, and I've posted more and spent more time here over the last year or two than in the past. But there's as much posted that I disagree as agree with.

The messages are as simplistic as you want them to be. You can kneejerk at some piece of news or an observation, but there's a whole universe out there of contradictions and alternatives if you've the time to explore them. It can certainly eat up time once you get into that sort of boundless surfing, and that's a luxury many people don't have. Which has its own ramifications for how people ingest their own favoured news sources. And then socially you get to test out your developed views against others' IRL, which can be an eye-opener at times.

We're certainly not subjected to any more simplistic messaging online than we were when we had three telly channels and the home's daily/Sunday newspaper to rely on. If we don't make use of what's available, it's our shortcoming - and as I said, not everyone has boundless time - not the Internet's.

 

Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
2. Thanks again for the food for thought, Denzil_DC
Fri Mar 18, 2016, 05:52 PM
Mar 2016

I need to go out now to work with some musicians. Will get back to you.

Certainly not calling out in any sense (I was on that jury and voted to hide the OP; the thread remains).

LeftishBrit

(41,190 posts)
3. Well, I think first of all, you must remember that poster doesn't actually think the UK should exist
Fri Mar 18, 2016, 05:57 PM
Mar 2016

as such; i.e. he thinks Scotland should be independent.

A defensible view - 45% of Scots supported it in the Referendum - but would obviously affect one's overall view of UK politics.

UK politics IS weird at the moment: the Tories are at each others' throats, between the other Referendum - on EU membership - and Osborne having just achieved the almost impossible feat of being too vicious toward disabled people even by the standards of other people in the Tory party. (I just said on another forum - imagine that someone comes up with something so mean-spirited that Michele Bachmann and Paul Ryan protest against their being too Right-wing; that's close to what's been happening today). Plus the usual infighting among Labour politicians!

And our media has always been bad. But I don't think it's got worse.

As regards Trump winning: well, all things are possible, but I'd be prepared to bet some money against it, and I'm not usually an optimist.

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