Tenebris Nox @ tenebrisnox @feddit.uk

> Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash… and I'm delighted to say that

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Who needs rivers and waterways when you have an Olympic-size heated indoor pool and all the bottles of Perrier you could ever dream of?

The people to hold to account are the villains and dupes who keep voting the Tories back in.

No, just a discussion.

I'm not sure you read what I've written anyhow. I tell you things like:

In the big scheme of things the money... is peanuts

And you then say:

The money given in donation and corrupt boys network schemes is small.

Which is more or less what I said. You did the same about terrorism.

I'm always interested in finding out how people invested in a broken system think that it can be improved or reformed (and willing to learn and change my mind which is the point of discussion). No worries, though.

But surely you recognise that voting in parliament is what seals the deal.

No, I don't. I can't see who the deal is between - because it's not between the ruling class and the ruled (the social contract doesn't exist). In the big scheme of things the money given to Tuften Street "think tanks", lobby groups, straightforward corruption and ownership of the media is peanuts in comparison to maintaining the current property relations in UK (and most of the world). We've seen what happens when the ruling class feels threatened and can no longer maintain the façade of "democracy". PR doesn't alter things much abroad: it gives a different style of entertainment to keep people distracted.

I'm in favour of distributive ownership and distributed power. No one group should be in control. We know that - to save the planet - we need to do things like outlaw oil companies (and the rapid end of use of fossil fuels) and mega-cattle farming. No "parliament" (first past the post, PR or whatever) is going to do that anywhere in the world. It's going to come down to a mix of terrible catastrophes which trigger direct action.

Very interesting info about Alice Paul - thank you. I didn't know anything about her.

I think you misunderstood the point I was making (or, apologies, I wasn't clear). I wasn't advocating terrorism. I was pointing out that the sufferagist movement was sometimes labelled as "terrorists" by the press not that they were actually terrorists. I was trying to draw comparisons between the way they were described and the way that (fairly moderate) environmentalists are labelled today. (Though I do think that the Irish republican movement has also made big gains and it's likely we'll see a united Ireland at some stage.)

I don't think it was World War I that enabled social change in Western Europe (that's a nice story told by the establishment to create the illusion that the upper and lower classes were all in it together). It was the fear of the spread of Bolshevism. We saw this repeated after 1945.

My personal view about political/societal change is that direct action eventually forces longer-term political change. Voting in a parliamentary election is little more than entertainment (and, of course, distraction).

Protests without the right sort of coverage is a total waste of time and effort.

Weren't some suffragettes labelled as terrorists and locked up? Some went about smashing things up and planting bombs.

Eventually - despite the way they were portrayed in the media of the day - they won. The suffrage movement took about 100 years (the earliest from around the time of the 1832 Reform Act and certainly from around 1870). Maybe the envirnomental movement will take that amount of time, too?

The BIG recent social gains in the UK (and likely Western Europe) happened after World War 2. The ruling classes were terrified of growing Soviet support and "allowed" concessions like the NHS and a large welfare state. The last 50 years have seen the slow reversal of those big gains.

To me it looks like most social and political change in the UK has come about as a consequence of fear of revolutions abroad (French and Russian primarily).

Day-to-day social change comes about as coordinated direct action though. Look at the successes of the LBTQ+ movement over the last 50 years and the profound progressive impact its had. You could probably say the same about animal wellfare.

I think environmental change will happen as a mix of direct action and some catastrophes that directly affect UK and Western countries. What IS a major factor preventing positive change is the billionaire-owned media that undeniably influences how ordinary people think and behave.

I remember that a former Labour leader warned this would happen and was roundly ridiculed in the media. Funny how lots of the things he warned about have come to pass.

Yes. Agreed.

But what is that....? The sound of Sunak refusing decent pay rises to public sector workers and allowing the triple lock for Tory-voting old people to add £10 billion a year to government spending.

A̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ the system is fucked hey.

Let's be accurate! :)

as cost of living pressures ease

Like the rest of the media, The Guardian is helping to make out that - as inflation supposedly falls - food and energy prices will fall. That's not what's happening - or will happen. Prices will continue to rise, just not so sharply.

I can't see how "cost of living pressures" will go away without deliberate price cuts. AND THAT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE UK.

Part of the continuing deception that "Everything's going well in the UK" while the excessively rich are looting the place.

Just reported that - yes - the family were looting Wilco for years. £77 million funnelled out of the company.

Wilco paid 77m to owners before collapse

Jeffrey Hunter is pretty wooden in the role (as are almost all the actors in The Cage). He comes across as a flat, somewhat listless characters with issues with women. Anson Mount plays the role with a much better sense of the humanity of Pike.

I'd love to see a literal remake but there are scenes that just wouldn't work (eg. the creepy scene where the young female ensign speaks to him).

You are right about this and it's something I'd not given any thought to. Checking out your recommendations. Thank you.

It’s been reported in several places. For example:

“Despite its problems, owners of the chain, led by the Wilkinson family, took £3m in dividends in the 12 months to the end of February 2022.”

from Today’s Guardian

The article didn’t mention that the shareholders - mostly the Wilkinson family - were essentially looting the company while it was in financial trouble.

I won’t be surprised if the owners had been funnelling money out of Wilco for years.

Another case of greed impacting on the jobs of ordinary people.

It will. Even if we could imagine a completely free, properly-networked public transport infrastructure, people would also need access to vehicles conveniently without having to own one.

Cars in UK (and probably all countries really) are like guns in the US. Suggesting that they give up theirs for a greater good is seen as some sort of immasculising curtailment of their God-given freedom.

At some point cars became a symbol of individualism. The number of people (men, really) I've worked with who insist on "buying" a new car every year was astonishing. Cars got bigger and bigger and flashier and flashier. All on finance though. Seemed like a weird, maschocistic addiction to me. Almost like they'd been brainwashed into car consumption.

What we actually need is a completely free at point of use public transport system. Break the weird car addition and help deal with the climate crisis.

"I feel like I'm being mugged off."

Welcome to capitalism in the UK 2023.