Post by Harkovast on Jan 22, 2017 16:19:32 GMT
Canuovea put a question to me that I thought deserved further discussion.
He asked why I should be so invested in talking about American politics.
The most obvious reasons I gave (I lived in America, my wife is American and I find it interesting) but there is a third, less obvious reason for my particular focus.
That reason is that British politics are just to horribly depressing.
With America, I have a certain separation where I am invested but not viscerally involved.
Over here there is no such separation and the awful, dread full things that happen affect me very directly.
First up there is Brexit, obviously. This was brought about by the exact same arrogant, elitest ruling class that help build the frustrations that led to Trump.
Over here is was less of an obvious left vs right thing. It was far more of an establishment vs angry outsiders.
Indeed, the rise of Trump could be looked at through that filter. Perhaps our old ideas of left and right as the two sides are becoming meaningless in this new political reality.
I get the frustrations and the anger that led to Brexit, but much like Trump's promise to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, the existing situation was shit but the answer of "so scrap everything" seems like it will be much worse.
The EU is an out of touch bureaucracy run by fat cats lining their own pockets and not giving a hoot about common people or their concerns.
Unfortunately, its also a series of vitally important treatise concerning trade, the movement of people, intelligence sharing etc.
Right now I can have goods shipped to me from anywhere in Europe and not pay tax to important it.
So when I order my custom resin space ships from France (lot of talented ship makers in France) I don't have to worry about an additional charge at the post office like I do when I order from Austrailia or America.
Now that might seem a petty example, and it is, but think about all the goods and all the businesses all across the UK that could be affected by suddenly having an additional tax to pay on imports.
It's fairly obvious that we will not get as good of a deal as we did when we were a member, after all why would we? The EU isn't going to offer a sweeter deal to countries that leave because that would be a signal for EVERYONE to leave. Its actually in the organisations best interest to make things tough for us.
What deal will we get? No one has any idea. Theresa May has promised a hard Brexit, a red white and blue Brexit (yes she really said that) and that no deal is better than a bad deal which is...ominous to say the least. But what specifics will we get at the end of all the negociation? WHo the fuck knows! But we've got no option left now but to roll the dice.
David Cameron is the most idiotic, failure of a politician in living memory.
He did the referendum on Brexit as a ploy to out wit the Euro-skeptics in his own party. For some reason he never seemed to entertain the question "yes but what if you lose the vote?"
His only success is that now he will be remembered as the idiot who mananged to ACCIDENTALLY get us out of Europe rather than as the Prime Minister who fucked a pig.
But don't think Theresa May is any better!
Having got power without anyone actually voting for her, Theresa has declared the Brexit vote her mandate (sure, why not?) and is using this as an excuse to pus hall the right wing Tory shit she can think of.
She wants to bring back Grammar Schools. They are a system where the smarter kids are sent off the better schools and the rest are sent to shitty schools and pretty much thrown on the scrap heap. This was a system we had in the 60s, and as you can imaginie it worked great for the kids that got selected, not so great for everyone else. Theresa May is bringing us back to the fucking 60s!
She's also SUPER enthusiastic about nuclear weapons. She just thinks they are neato.
She was quite proud to announce she would fire them off at an enemy that had fired them at Britain even in the knowledge that this would do nothing to save us from obliteration.
Look I get thats what you have to say for mutually assured destruction to work, but the enthusiasm from this dreadful woman horrified me. I was in favour of the nuclear deterrent until I saw that, now I think we should scrap them.
I mean Germany doesn't have any, neither does Japan and they seem fine.
France still have them, and America would obliterate anyone who launched anything nuclear at any of their allies.
I've heard that its to safe guard jobs, maintaining the weapons and submarines that hold them...but do we really need to build doomsday weapons we hope never to fire in order to keep people in work? Couldn't we have them build conventional weapons if we really need war related employment?
The real reason we have to keep the nukes is that British leaders love to stay close to America and Trident (our nukes) are purchased from America.
There's something British leaders find weird intoxicating about being close to the power of Washington, and as Tony Blair taught us, they are happy to do some really stupid shit to get that high.
It now turns out that there was a misfire of a Trident missile (not one armed with a nuke at the time) and May new about it when the last vote on renewing it happened. She hasn't admitted that she knew but repeatedly ducked the question when asked, saying weird statements abotu how the opposition leader didn't want to defend the country and saying tests happen all the time and the vote was about the future. If she didn't know shes working real really hard to make it look like she did!
But who cares about lying to parliament and the public by omitting very important information about nuclear weapons.
May wants her doomsday missiles!
Speaking of Tony Blair, Labour (the alternative to the Tories) have pretty much made clear they want Tony Blair to come back and lead them, despite the fact a lot o the country considers him a fucking war criminal!
Why would they want to bring back such a deeply hated leader, you ask?
Because Labour's current leader is Jeremy Corbyn, a genuinely left wing leader.
It turns out we aren't supposed to have left and right in this country, just right and a little bit less right. Sort of like saying you can have any drink you want as long as its Pepsi or diet Pepsi. And the Pepsi fucks over poor people.
There is a large section of labour who would seriously rather the conservatives win for the time being then risk their party moving left, even though its what their own party membership voted for.
I've bashed the media for their open cheerleading for Hillary and hatred for Trump, but its no better over here. The media are very much against Corbyn, presenting him as a bumbling bofoon at every opportunity and eagerly carrying the can for the Torys as much as possible.
Its almost like socialist, left wing policies might not help the rich people who own and run our media. How odd!
Honestly my feelings about the future over here are about as bleak as I can remember. I don't see any good prospects on the horizon.
So I stick to complaining about all the stupid stuff happening in America, its a good way to distract myself from all the shit going on over here.
I hear Michelle Obama made a grump face when Trump's wife gave her a present!
Oh no you didn't! Mrs Obama is throwing some shade!
Ho ho ho.
There, much better.
He asked why I should be so invested in talking about American politics.
The most obvious reasons I gave (I lived in America, my wife is American and I find it interesting) but there is a third, less obvious reason for my particular focus.
That reason is that British politics are just to horribly depressing.
With America, I have a certain separation where I am invested but not viscerally involved.
Over here there is no such separation and the awful, dread full things that happen affect me very directly.
First up there is Brexit, obviously. This was brought about by the exact same arrogant, elitest ruling class that help build the frustrations that led to Trump.
Over here is was less of an obvious left vs right thing. It was far more of an establishment vs angry outsiders.
Indeed, the rise of Trump could be looked at through that filter. Perhaps our old ideas of left and right as the two sides are becoming meaningless in this new political reality.
I get the frustrations and the anger that led to Brexit, but much like Trump's promise to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, the existing situation was shit but the answer of "so scrap everything" seems like it will be much worse.
The EU is an out of touch bureaucracy run by fat cats lining their own pockets and not giving a hoot about common people or their concerns.
Unfortunately, its also a series of vitally important treatise concerning trade, the movement of people, intelligence sharing etc.
Right now I can have goods shipped to me from anywhere in Europe and not pay tax to important it.
So when I order my custom resin space ships from France (lot of talented ship makers in France) I don't have to worry about an additional charge at the post office like I do when I order from Austrailia or America.
Now that might seem a petty example, and it is, but think about all the goods and all the businesses all across the UK that could be affected by suddenly having an additional tax to pay on imports.
It's fairly obvious that we will not get as good of a deal as we did when we were a member, after all why would we? The EU isn't going to offer a sweeter deal to countries that leave because that would be a signal for EVERYONE to leave. Its actually in the organisations best interest to make things tough for us.
What deal will we get? No one has any idea. Theresa May has promised a hard Brexit, a red white and blue Brexit (yes she really said that) and that no deal is better than a bad deal which is...ominous to say the least. But what specifics will we get at the end of all the negociation? WHo the fuck knows! But we've got no option left now but to roll the dice.
David Cameron is the most idiotic, failure of a politician in living memory.
He did the referendum on Brexit as a ploy to out wit the Euro-skeptics in his own party. For some reason he never seemed to entertain the question "yes but what if you lose the vote?"
His only success is that now he will be remembered as the idiot who mananged to ACCIDENTALLY get us out of Europe rather than as the Prime Minister who fucked a pig.
But don't think Theresa May is any better!
Having got power without anyone actually voting for her, Theresa has declared the Brexit vote her mandate (sure, why not?) and is using this as an excuse to pus hall the right wing Tory shit she can think of.
She wants to bring back Grammar Schools. They are a system where the smarter kids are sent off the better schools and the rest are sent to shitty schools and pretty much thrown on the scrap heap. This was a system we had in the 60s, and as you can imaginie it worked great for the kids that got selected, not so great for everyone else. Theresa May is bringing us back to the fucking 60s!
She's also SUPER enthusiastic about nuclear weapons. She just thinks they are neato.
She was quite proud to announce she would fire them off at an enemy that had fired them at Britain even in the knowledge that this would do nothing to save us from obliteration.
Look I get thats what you have to say for mutually assured destruction to work, but the enthusiasm from this dreadful woman horrified me. I was in favour of the nuclear deterrent until I saw that, now I think we should scrap them.
I mean Germany doesn't have any, neither does Japan and they seem fine.
France still have them, and America would obliterate anyone who launched anything nuclear at any of their allies.
I've heard that its to safe guard jobs, maintaining the weapons and submarines that hold them...but do we really need to build doomsday weapons we hope never to fire in order to keep people in work? Couldn't we have them build conventional weapons if we really need war related employment?
The real reason we have to keep the nukes is that British leaders love to stay close to America and Trident (our nukes) are purchased from America.
There's something British leaders find weird intoxicating about being close to the power of Washington, and as Tony Blair taught us, they are happy to do some really stupid shit to get that high.
It now turns out that there was a misfire of a Trident missile (not one armed with a nuke at the time) and May new about it when the last vote on renewing it happened. She hasn't admitted that she knew but repeatedly ducked the question when asked, saying weird statements abotu how the opposition leader didn't want to defend the country and saying tests happen all the time and the vote was about the future. If she didn't know shes working real really hard to make it look like she did!
But who cares about lying to parliament and the public by omitting very important information about nuclear weapons.
May wants her doomsday missiles!
Speaking of Tony Blair, Labour (the alternative to the Tories) have pretty much made clear they want Tony Blair to come back and lead them, despite the fact a lot o the country considers him a fucking war criminal!
Why would they want to bring back such a deeply hated leader, you ask?
Because Labour's current leader is Jeremy Corbyn, a genuinely left wing leader.
It turns out we aren't supposed to have left and right in this country, just right and a little bit less right. Sort of like saying you can have any drink you want as long as its Pepsi or diet Pepsi. And the Pepsi fucks over poor people.
There is a large section of labour who would seriously rather the conservatives win for the time being then risk their party moving left, even though its what their own party membership voted for.
I've bashed the media for their open cheerleading for Hillary and hatred for Trump, but its no better over here. The media are very much against Corbyn, presenting him as a bumbling bofoon at every opportunity and eagerly carrying the can for the Torys as much as possible.
Its almost like socialist, left wing policies might not help the rich people who own and run our media. How odd!
Honestly my feelings about the future over here are about as bleak as I can remember. I don't see any good prospects on the horizon.
So I stick to complaining about all the stupid stuff happening in America, its a good way to distract myself from all the shit going on over here.
I hear Michelle Obama made a grump face when Trump's wife gave her a present!
Oh no you didn't! Mrs Obama is throwing some shade!
Ho ho ho.
There, much better.