Philosophy Discussion Forums

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:54 pm
There was a moment when Bernie and Corbyn, against all the odds, just might have become the leaders of America and the UK, and demonstrated that a Leftist government can do better, that there Is an Alternative.

I doubt we'll get that chance again for a long time.

I believe that the stakes are so high that Sen Sanders would never be allowed to win. In fact I believe the DNC denied him the candidacy in both 2008 and 2012. He was leading in the polls. He won the Dem primary in the state of WA, for example, but all of the super-delegates voted for Hillary.
Also, Bernie has spoken of the risk he was taking to himself and family challenging the powers that rule.
In any event he would not have had a cooperative Democratic Congress even if he got elected.
The struggle we are seeing isn't between the Left and Right, the Dems and Repubs, the Blue and Red, but between the uber wealthy Elite class vs. the rest of us. The Elite Class propaganda machine incl Rachel Maddow and the NYT would rather see a civil war than a revolution against the Elite.

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:13 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 27th, 2024, 6:28 pm
The far left now champions corporate interests while the "far right" is touted as corporations' enemies.

This statement is not true at all. In fact it's a right wing talking point.
There are three factions, the Right, the Neo-Liberals and the Left and they do not fall on a linear line, meaning the neo-liberals are NOT central between the Left and Right.

The Right, like Trump, are supported by conservative billionaires and want to dismantle all the social programs that help people. Ironically their supporters are the poorest in the Red States and believe their leaders when told that it's the fault of the Left (meaning the neo-liberals).

The "Far" Left has very little representation in the US government. Sen Sanders and maybe 2 or 3 other senators, AOC and the Squad of about 6 House Reps. They fight against the control of major corporations and billionaires. The want universal healthcare, strong unions, fair wages, and an end to corporate monopolies. Neo-Liberals do not agree on these issues.

The neo-liberal faction is made up of the Democratic wealthy elite like Obama, Biden, Harris, Clinton's, etc. They completely agree with the Right on the issues of tax breaks for the wealthy, war-war-war, genocide of Palestinians, and a huge defense budget. They are a little more sympathetic with the Left on social issues (to try to get Left votes) but not much.
The Right Wing calls the neo-liberals “the Left” in error.

Nice try, no cigar.

All of the groups you mention come under a single heading - irrational partisans. Many people don't care about the tribes. They care about policies. They might care about economic policies that don't pander to short-term thinking. Others care about social policies that are fair and make sense. Others care about safety and social cohesion. Others care about opportunities.

The mainstream media, and those whose minds are controlled by the mainstream media, do not acknowledge this vast group of relatively objective people because they don't fit neatly into their little socio-political boxes.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 5:13 pm
Nice try, no cigar.

All of the groups you mention come under a single heading - irrational partisans. Many people don't care about the tribes. They care about policies. They might care about economic policies that don't pander to short-term thinking. Others care about social policies that are fair and make sense. Others care about safety and social cohesion. Others care about opportunities.

The mainstream media, and those whose minds are controlled by the mainstream media, do not acknowledge this vast group of relatively objective people because they don't fit neatly into their little socio-political boxes.

I was responding to your statement about the category you mentioned “the far left” and pointing out that they do not “champion corporate interests” as you stated. Maybe you were referring instead to the Democratic Elite like Harris, Obama, Clinton, etc. They do champion corporate interests.

In my experience, most American voters to not use the “social policies” stances of candidates as a factor when voting. Most American voters either follow the corporate media like CNN and NYT or Fox News which provide propaganda and not policy information.

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 7:42 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 5:13 pm
Nice try, no cigar.

All of the groups you mention come under a single heading - irrational partisans. Many people don't care about the tribes. They care about policies. They might care about economic policies that don't pander to short-term thinking. Others care about social policies that are fair and make sense. Others care about safety and social cohesion. Others care about opportunities.

The mainstream media, and those whose minds are controlled by the mainstream media, do not acknowledge this vast group of relatively objective people because they don't fit neatly into their little socio-political boxes.

I was responding to your statement about the category you mentioned “the far left” and pointing out that they do not “champion corporate interests” as you stated. Maybe you were referring instead to the Democratic Elite like Harris, Obama, Clinton, etc. They do champion corporate interests.

In my experience, most American voters to not use the “social policies” stances of candidates as a factor when voting. Most American voters either follow the corporate media like CNN and NYT or Fox News which provide propaganda and not policy information.

While many follow social policies that their corporate masters tell them to follow via their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, many others have contempt for the games being played and just want sensible policies, not short term or bandaid fixes, but actual attempts to do what governments are supposed to do, reduce to ability of powerful players to distort the market.

It's pretty outrageous when you think about it, how media outlets don't so much report on issues but tell people how they should be thinking about those issues.

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 2:02 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:54 pm
There was a moment when Bernie and Corbyn, against all the odds, just might have become the leaders of America and the UK, and demonstrated that a Leftist government can do better, that there Is an Alternative.

I doubt we'll get that chance again for a long time.

I believe that the stakes are so high that Sen Sanders would never be allowed to win. In fact I believe the DNC denied him the candidacy in both 2008 and 2012. He was leading in the polls. He won the Dem primary in the state of WA, for example, but all of the super-delegates voted for Hillary.
Also, Bernie has spoken of the risk he was taking to himself and family challenging the powers that rule.

In any event he would not have had a cooperative Democratic Congress even if he got elected.

The struggle we are seeing isn't between the Left and Right, the Dems and Repubs, the Blue and Red, but between the uber wealthy Elite class vs. the rest of us.

I can't speak for America, but I know the Labour Party went to shocking lengths to get rid of Corbyn as leader, even knowing they were thereby allowing the Tories to win the election and stay in power.  New ordinary members of the Labour Party who joined to support Corbyn were denigrated by party officials as extremist Trotskyite thugs and made to jump through new hoops to become members.  Which took many months while they looked for some reason to bar you, like being a previous member of another Leftist party, while they openly wooed Tory supporters. 

Nearly all Cobyn's Shadow Front Bench (appointed ministers of departments if they win power) resigned in unison, in order to try to force him to resign.  A bunch of Labour MPs formed a breakaway 'Centre Left' party, which they knew had no chance of winning any elections. but might take enough votes from Corbyn's Labour Party to allow the Tories to win the election.  And they supported the barrage of personal smears the media (across the board) churned out daily about Corbyn, even when they knew they were lies.

It was truely shocking to me. To see it happening in front of my eyes (I was one of the people who joined the Labour Party when Corbyn became leader, along with hundreds of thousands of others).  Like most Progressive movements it was grass roots driven, and Chomsky pretty much nailed what happened.  And Corbyn is one of the most pacifist, pro-democratic, gentlest and decent people you'll ever know (he's a vegetarian who rides a bike, has an allotment and makes jam!  He's like an old peace n love hippy).  And still he was monstered as a Stalinesque authoritarian.  The Labour Party had previously tolerated him as a harmless anachronistic oddball, but when he somehow managed to become leader they were ruthless. Parroting the Right Wing press and promoting the idea that democratic Leftist policies are simultaneously naive idealism and scary authoritarianism, because they want to nationalise railways, fight climate change and build social housing. In other words, challenge the vested interests of those who currently own the railways, own the oil companies and have multi-million rental portfolios.

Seriously most of Labour MPs prefered  (and some  actively engineered) bonkers Tory governments led by Johnson and May, grinding us down with a decade of Austerity -  and going for the worst possible Brexit deal with the EU which has helped ruin the country's economy.  Opening the door to the  Right's Randian dream of a bonfire of regulations and corporate free marketism on steroids, with tax breaks for bankers, billionaires and corporations.  Then when Truss became Prime Minister and did just that, she almost broke the UK economy in a matter of weeks.   We're still paying for the tens of billions she cost the country in her thankfully short tenure, via yet more Austerity for  ordinary people.  And Starmer, the new Labour Prime Minister,   is going along with it.

Where do people turn?  Even further Right to the only available alternative to mainstream neo-liberal 'Centrism'.  To the likes of Trump, Farage, Meloni, Orban, Le Penn, and even Germany's   Far Right AFD party winning  its first local elections since WWII.  And the cycle repeats. 

It's so sad.  More so because we had that moment when the Left nearly had a chance to demonstrate there is another way. And the Labour Party deliberately sabotaged it.

Anyway here we are again... the only choice is you'd better vote Starmer or Harris or it'll be even worse.

Gertie wrote:I believe they're still meaningful politically in a democratic mixed economy, in the traditional way you describe.

My quoted point is a practical one regarding how politics has been playing out in practice. As Neoliberalism has become the normalised status quo in the wealthy democracies, in effect it's now the 'Centrist' position. But people are waking up to the fact that free markets don't everything best, de-regulation isn't the answer to everything, privatising every resource (even essential natural monopolies) and prioritising profit primarily benefits share-holders, and the benefits of unrestricted capitalism don't 'trickle down' much, or at least not without a strong progressive taxation system.

Combine that with starving the remaining Public Services, and telling us that Austerity for us is necessary while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful, breeds disaffection with the system and 'politics as usual'.

And if the established parties on the Left effectively acquiesce to Neo-liberalism as the norm, as do the Centrists, then where is the practical alternative? Thatcher said 'There is no alternative', the debate is over. And the major parties on the Left have largely failed to offer an alternative.

Well Corbyn managed to sneak into leadership of the Labour Party, by being nominated by enough MPs who felt the Left should be represented in the party leadership race, but nobody expected him to win. Those MPs were shocked at his popularity with the membership, with 500.000 ordinary people. And then the Labour Party establishment did everything it could to get rid of him.

When they couldn't, the media was ferocious in its monstering of him. Especially after he nearly overturned the polls and beat May. There was some fair critique, but the wall of opposition was because he and McDonnell offered a genuine alternative and a different vision. The wealthy and powerful vested interests were genuinely scared.

Where-as they don't see the likes of Starmer as a threat to the status quo. And they're right.

Which leaves the Far Right to ride the tide of disaffection, fed by the distractions of the latest 'Other' scapegoats - immigrants, trans people, the liberal elite, scroungers, corrupt institutions, wokeism, nationalism, etc. Trump isn't subtle about it, he'll peddle ''an immigrant ate my hamster'' or whatever ******** to fire up the 'othering'. And half of America goes along with him. Then he questions democracy itself when he loses, effectively setting himself up as a 'Strongman' alternative to democracy. And half of America goes along with it.

Well said, Gertie. The other day I heard Trump calling Harris and the Democrats “socialists and communists”. But the Democrats are only slightly less to the right than he is. There is no true social-democratic party in US politics, just a few individuals like Bernie Sanders. And the situation in the UK mirrors that in Australia. The great Australian Labor Party is now no more than a name. Trade unionism is all but dead. The workforce has been casualized on low wages without any job security and the real wages of working-class people have been falling for decades. Publicly owned assets have all been privatized – sold off to big corporations who price-gouge the public with little or no oversight by government. Neo-conservatism in politics now reigns supreme - backed by the billionaires, and the monopolistic corporations which the own. They own everything including the mainstream media which serves up right-wing “infotainment” to masses, and any view that is even slightly to the left of far-right is ignored, ridiculed or demonized. Centrism in politics is dead almost everywhere in the world. This is the hole the West has dug for itself and it’s difficult to see how it can ever get out of it. And it’s not just the West. The same model of capitalism and corporatism now rules in Russia, China and most of the rest of the world. All wealth is sucked up to the oligarchy at the top. The rest are consigned to ever worsening wage slavery. Under these conditions the American dream and the Australian dream are just pipe dreams.

And, further to my post above, the mega-corporations that own now everything, now also track everything we do online and everywhere we go. Visit just about any website and take a look at the cookies and trackers. Even our geographic locations are tracked via our smart phones. And people are completely exposed on Facebook and the like. Just as left and centrist positions in politics are now impossible, so individual privacy is now dead.

We are all reduced to data cogs in the wheel of quasi-monopolistic capitalism which grinds on relentlessly pumping wealth upwards to the few. I’ve stopped using meta and Google search engines because of their tracking and targeting, and if I weren’t so old and arthritic and could still go browsing in real bookstores (which I used to love doing), I’d ditch Amazon’s Kindle.

If this is how the world ends then I’m not going to miss it much. I feel for the younger generations, the vast majority of whom will never own anything, not even their privacy. Brave New World.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 8:26 pm

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 7:42 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 5:13 pm
Nice try, no cigar.

All of the groups you mention come under a single heading - irrational partisans. Many people don't care about the tribes. They care about policies. They might care about economic policies that don't pander to short-term thinking. Others care about social policies that are fair and make sense. Others care about safety and social cohesion. Others care about opportunities.

The mainstream media, and those whose minds are controlled by the mainstream media, do not acknowledge this vast group of relatively objective people because they don't fit neatly into their little socio-political boxes.

I was responding to your statement about the category you mentioned “the far left” and pointing out that they do not “champion corporate interests” as you stated. Maybe you were referring instead to the Democratic Elite like Harris, Obama, Clinton, etc. They do champion corporate interests.

In my experience, most American voters to not use the “social policies” stances of candidates as a factor when voting. Most American voters either follow the corporate media like CNN and NYT or Fox News which provide propaganda and not policy information.

While many follow social policies that their corporate masters tell them to follow via their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, many others have contempt for the games being played and just want sensible policies, not short term or bandaid fixes, but actual attempts to do what governments are supposed to do, reduce to ability of powerful players to distort the market.

It's pretty outrageous when you think about it, how media outlets don't so much report on issues but tell people how they should be thinking about those issues.

It strikes me that "mainstream media" became a perjorative just as the networks lost huge market share and newspapers lost huge circulation numbers. I mean who younger than retirement age watches national broadcast news or reads a daily newspaper? Essentially no one. Oh and "fake news" became a thing at the same time. Coincidence?

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 9:13 am You see, this confuses me. Traditionally, left and right have been defined by practical Capitalism. The left represented the 'workers' or the 'people', while the right represented employers and investors.

There have always been extremists, who hide behind the labels "left" and "right", and even "centre". But we should push them out from behind their disguises, and call them what they are: dictators or authoritarians.

So where does that leave us? Are "left" and "right" still meaningful, politically? If they are, do they retain their traditional meanings, or...?

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:11 pm I believe they're still meaningful politically in a democratic mixed economy, in the traditional way you describe. 

My quoted point is a practical one regarding how politics has been playing out in practice.  As Neoliberalism has become the normalised status quo in the wealthy democracies, in effect it's now the 'Centrist' position. But people are waking up to the fact that free markets don't everything best, de-regulation isn't the answer to everything, privatising every resource (even essential natural monopolies) and prioritising profit primarily benefits share-holders, and the benefits of unrestricted capitalism don't 'trickle down' much, or at least not without a strong progressive taxation system. 

OK, so we both seem to agree that the terms "left" and "right" retain their traditional meanings, but have become less *significant* in modern politics. Is that fair?

My comment was really aimed at what Sy Borg said, that seemed to indicate new meanings for "left" and "right".

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:11 pm Combine that with starving the remaining Public Services,  and telling us that Austerity for us is necessary while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful,  breeds disaffection with the system and 'politics as usual'.

And if the established parties on the Left effectively acquiesce to Neo-liberalism as the norm, as do the Centrists, then where is the practical alternative?   Thatcher said 'There is no alternative',  the debate is over.  And the major parties on the Left have largely failed to offer an alternative. 

Well Corbyn managed to sneak into leadership of the Labour Party, by being nominated by enough MPs who felt the Left should be represented in the party leadership race, but nobody expected him to win.  Those MPs were shocked at his popularity with the membership, with 500.000 ordinary people.  And then the Labour Party establishment did everything it could to get rid of him. 

When they couldn't, the media was ferocious in its monstering of him.  Especially after he nearly overturned the polls and beat May.  There was some fair critique, but the wall of opposition was because he and McDonnell offered a genuine alternative and a different vision.  The wealthy and powerful vested interests were genuinely scared.

Yes, I recently read a blog post, outspoken and angry, about Corbyn's treatment. Here's a link, if you wish to read it? It's the truth, set out as the media have not managed to do, perhaps because it was them, along with the PLP, that got rid of Corbyn, and his despicable 𝕊𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕞. Here's a brief quote.

Normal Island News wrote: It all started back in September 2015 when to our horror, the Labour membership chose the wrong leader.

When we allowed Labour to have internal party democracy, we had no idea the membership would choose a non-corporate candidate who would put the wellbeing of others before personal gain.

My own local MP was a Blair-'babe', and later a Starmer-sycophant. He was one of those who campaigned *against* their democratically-elected leader, in favour of Blair and Starmer's preference — to get elected, even if that meant sacrificing every political principle they were supposed to hold.

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:11 pm Where-as they don't see the likes of Starmer as a threat to the status quo.  And they're right. 

Which leaves the Far Right to ride the tide of disaffection, fed by the distractions of the latest 'Other' scapegoats - immigrants, trans people, the liberal elite,  scroungers, corrupt institutions, wokeism, nationalism, etc. Trump isn't subtle about it, he'll peddle ''an immigrant ate my hamster'' or whatever ******** to fire up the 'othering'.  And half of America goes along with him. Then he questions democracy itself when he loses, effectively setting himself up as a  'Strongman' alternative to democracy.  And half of America goes along with it. 

Yes, American politics baffles me. Even more than my own Brits, Americans seem willing to swallow almost anything Trump says, even though it's obviously nonsense.

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:13 pm The "Far" Left has very little representation in the US government. Sen Sanders and maybe 2 or 3 other senators, AOC and the Squad of about 6 House Reps. They fight against the control of major corporations and billionaires.

I have to disagree with this. Britain's Jeremy Corbyn is a Socialist, who holds strongly-Left principles. He is far to the Left of any American politician. [There are cultural reasons for that, of course.] But I wouldn't describe him as "extreme", only as a politician who sticks firmly to their principles. In this case, Socialist principles.

IME, extremists are almost always dictators, or something close to that. They aren't Left or Right, but only political narcissists, focussed only on their own personal aims and ambitions, which they achieve via authoritarian means.

Gertie wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 12:54 pm There was a moment when Bernie and Corbyn, against all the odds, just might have become the leaders of America and the UK, and demonstrated that a Leftist government can do better, that there Is an Alternative.

I doubt we'll get that chance again for a long time.

Agreed. When Corbyn stood in the UI, that was the only time in my own life when I got the cahnce to vote for a Socdialist government. And I did. But the media and the PLP conspired to ensure that he couldn't win.

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 2:02 pm I believe that the stakes are so high that Sen Sanders would never be allowed to win.

Yes, Corbyn too. But it wasn't because the stakes were "so high", I don't think. It was that a Left-wing government might've required billionaires to pay tax, or made them give their employees sick-pay, medical insurance (), paid () holidays, and not fire their workers without good and fair reason(s).

Sy Borg wrote: ↑September 28th, 2024, 5:13 pm Many people don't care about the tribes. They care about policies. They might care about economic policies that don't pander to short-term thinking. Others care about social policies that are fair and make sense. Others care about safety and social cohesion. Others care about opportunities.

The mainstream media, and those whose minds are controlled by the mainstream media, do not acknowledge this vast group of relatively objective people because they don't fit neatly into their little socio-political boxes.

Oh, I think they "acknowledge" them, but they don't respect them, or any namby-pamby nonsense like that. They seek only to control them, I think, and to avoid (at all costs!) the considered good-sense that you describe in your first paragraph.

lagaya

Well said, Gertie. The other day I heard Trump calling Harris and the Democrats “socialists and communists”. But the Democrats are only slightly less to the right than he is. There is no true social-democratic party in US politics, just a few individuals like Bernie Sanders. And the situation in the UK mirrors that in Australia. The great Australian Labor Party is now no more than a name. Trade unionism is all but dead. The workforce has been casualized on low wages without any job security and the real wages of working-class people have been falling for decades. Publicly owned assets have all been privatized – sold off to big corporations who price-gouge the public with little or no oversight by government. Neo-conservatism in politics now reigns supreme - backed by the billionaires, and the monopolistic corporations which the own. They own everything including the mainstream media which serves up right-wing “infotainment” to masses, and any view that is even slightly to the left of far-right is ignored, ridiculed or demonized. Centrism in politics is dead almost everywhere in the world. This is the hole the West has dug for itself and it’s difficult to see how it can ever get out of it. And it’s not just the West. The same model of capitalism and corporatism now rules in Russia, China and most of the rest of the world. All wealth is sucked up to the oligarchy at the top. The rest are consigned to ever worsening wage slavery. Under these conditions the American dream and the Australian dream are just pipe dreams.


And, further to my post above, the mega-corporations that own now everything, now also track everything we do online and everywhere we go. Visit just about any website and take a look at the cookies and trackers. Even our geographic locations are tracked via our smart phones. And people are completely exposed on Facebook and the like. Just as left and centrist positions in politics are now impossible, so individual privacy is now dead.

We are all reduced to data cogs in the wheel of quasi-monopolistic capitalism which grinds on relentlessly pumping wealth upwards to the few. I’ve stopped using meta and Google search engines because of their tracking and targeting, and if I weren’t so old and arthritic and could still go browsing in real bookstores (which I used to love doing), I’d ditch Amazon’s Kindle.

If this is how the world ends then I’m not going to miss it much. I feel for the younger generations, the vast majority of whom will never own anything, not even their privacy. Brave New World.

I'm sorry to hear it's much the same in Australia lagaya, not surprised though.  You make good points about how the billionaires and  corporations own the new social media too.  They have our information, and can use it to personalise manipulation  much more effectively to serve their own interests, and that of their advertisers.  Musk buying himself Twitter and the cesspool of Right Wing bigotry and conspiracy he's fostered lays it bare.

I remember watching an interview recorded years ago with playwright Dennis Potter who knew he was dying.  It's a remarkable interview if you can find it.  One of his comments back then which has borne out was that we are changing from a nation of Citizens to a nation of Consumers.  This strikes me as true across the wealthy democracies, even the language of free public services is now about Customer and competition -  the notion of public service is  being corporatised.  Personnel became 'Human Resources', now in the same category as non-human resources like staplers and computers.  Our role is to serve the economy, not for the economy to serve us.

We see it with the BBC too, which is supposed to be our one news outlet which doesn't serve corporations.  It's remit was to be independent of government and commerce, to ''Educate, Inform and Entertain''.  Of course it's impossible to be completely unbiased, but that was its mission.  Now it's run like a business, which has to compete with other news sources, which it does by following the narratives set by the other media, the right wing Daily Mail being the most influential.  It should be our bastion against those vested interests, and a source of unspun facts, which is why the Right hate it, but it's slid into the morass. 

As for Trade Unions, Thatcher did for them here.  I was a Union Rep long after that, and subsequent Labour government did little to put things right.  Even though the Labour Party was founded by the trade union movement to give ordinary working people a voice in Parliament. 

It all looks pretty dire to me too.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑September 29th, 2024, 8:58 am
Yes, American politics baffles me. Even more than my own Brits, Americans seem willing to swallow almost anything Trump says, even though it's obviously nonsense.

In the US the grassroots Republicans, coming from the poorest states, have grown tired of the empty rhetoric of their fat cat elite leadership of the Bush family, Romney, Cheney, etc. and have turned to the wack-a-doodle leadership of Trump, Cruz, DeSanis, that at least “aren't smart”. They seem to see hope in the faux-rebellion of Trump.

The ever faithful main body of grassroots Democrats are addicted to the Blue Pill and blindly following their wealthy elite leaders like Biden, Harris, Obama, Clinton, etc. They badly want to believe and trust the corporate media like CNN and the NYT which have sunk to the level of Fox News.

The progressive Left find themselves lost with almost no representation in the government. They have been shunned by the Democratic Party who would rather lose to Trump than Sen Sanders.

PC

I believe they're still meaningful politically in a democratic mixed economy, in the traditional way you describe. 

My quoted point is a practical one regarding how politics has been playing out in practice.  As Neoliberalism has become the normalised status quo in the wealthy democracies, in effect it's now the 'Centrist' position. But people are waking up to the fact that free markets don't everything best, de-regulation isn't the answer to everything, privatising every resource (even essential natural monopolies) and prioritising profit primarily benefits share-holders, and the benefits of unrestricted capitalism don't 'trickle down' much, or at least not without a strong progressive taxation system. 

OK, so we both seem to agree that the terms "left" and "right" retain their traditional meanings, but have become less *significant* in modern politics. Is that fair?

My comment was really aimed at what Sy Borg said, that seemed to indicate new meanings for "left" and "right".

I believe it's important to hang on to our definitions, or what they mean gets distorted, or simply disappears from the political discourse - which suits the Right's agenda to re-direct people's disaffection from the people who actually control things.  It's a propaganda tool. 

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 12:11 pm Combine that with starving the remaining Public Services,  and telling us that Austerity for us is necessary while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful,  breeds disaffection with the system and 'politics as usual'.

And if the established parties on the Left effectively acquiesce to Neo-liberalism as the norm, as do the Centrists, then where is the practical alternative?   Thatcher said 'There is no alternative',  the debate is over.  And the major parties on the Left have largely failed to offer an alternative. 

Well Corbyn managed to sneak into leadership of the Labour Party, by being nominated by enough MPs who felt the Left should be represented in the party leadership race, but nobody expected him to win.  Those MPs were shocked at his popularity with the membership, with 500.000 ordinary people.  And then the Labour Party establishment did everything it could to get rid of him. 

When they couldn't, the media was ferocious in its monstering of him.  Especially after he nearly overturned the polls and beat May.  There was some fair critique, but the wall of opposition was because he and McDonnell offered a genuine alternative and a different vision.  The wealthy and powerful vested interests were genuinely scared.

Yes, I recently read a blog post, outspoken and angry, about Corbyn's treatment. Here's a link, if you wish to read it? It's the truth, set out as the media have not managed to do, perhaps because it was them, along with the PLP, that got rid of Corbyn, and his despicable 𝕊𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕞. Here's a brief quote.
Normal Island News wrote: It all started back in September 2015 when to our horror, the Labour membership chose the wrong leader.

When we allowed Labour to have internal party democracy, we had no idea the membership would choose a non-corporate candidate who would put the wellbeing of others before personal gain.
My own local MP was a Blair-'babe', and later a Starmer-sycophant. He was one of those who campaigned *against* their democratically-elected leader, in favour of Blair and Starmer's preference — to get elected, even if that meant sacrificing every political principle they were supposed to hold.

I'll check out the link, thanks. It sounds spot on.  Except I now think Blair and Starmer are True Believers, not just cynically playing politics to get elected.  Blair was literally campaigning against Corbyn, when he knew it meant keeping the Tories in power, because they are ideologically closer to him.  Starmer, I don't know if he's just a careerist, or if he's the same, but the proof is in the pudding.  He woos Tories, accepts them into the Labour Party, and expels Leftists.  He takes away pensioners' heating allowance and chooses to keep our poorest children outside the welfare safety net.  Rather than tax the rich and corporations. What do you think?

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 12:11 pm Where-as they don't see the likes of Starmer as a threat to the status quo.  And they're right. 

Which leaves the Far Right to ride the tide of disaffection, fed by the distractions of the latest 'Other' scapegoats - immigrants, trans people, the liberal elite,  scroungers, corrupt institutions, wokeism, nationalism, etc. Trump isn't subtle about it, he'll peddle ''an immigrant ate my hamster'' or whatever ******** to fire up the 'othering'.  And half of America goes along with him. Then he questions democracy itself when he loses, effectively setting himself up as a  'Strongman' alternative to democracy.  And half of America goes along with it. 

Yes, American politics baffles me. Even more than my own Brits, Americans seem willing to swallow almost anything Trump says, even though it's obviously nonsense.

There's a saying that what America is now, the UK will be in 10 years.  We'll see how the Tory leadership election goes, how far they capitulate to Farage's awful Reform Party to stem the loss of right wing votes.  One thing's for sure, that's the direction they'll go. And for many, Farage has the sort of charisma Trump trades on, he knows how to push the same buttons.  I think Mo's summed it up, and it's more a matter of degree than of kind. For now.