Duck Femocracy!

Right that's it, I'm done.

Brexit, Trump, Boris, The Destruction of Public Services, the Abuse of Vulnerable People, the Lies and Lies and Lies...

I am so fucking fuming....

It's time to admit that we do not have anything close to a functioning democracy. We are really shit at it.

I am currently reading Amelia Gentleman's The Windrush Betrayal. Some of you may know that I have previously ranted that it is unforgivable that Windrush is not a bigger scandal in our country. I knew the story of Windrush and how it's a combination of deliberate cynical, political decision-making with no care for the consequences and callous bureaucracy that did so much damage to so many but... but reading this excellent book makes it real and human. This is my country abusing its own citizens in a particularly cruel way. Several times the effective abolition of Legal Aid is shown to factor in preventing the victims OF THEIR OWN FUCKING GOVERNMENT from fighting back when the government is acting illegally... You see these things are connected. The hostile environment, legal aid cuts, public sector decimation - they are all deliberate political decisions that have real-world consequences for real (and unheard) human beings.

In the US, there is the parallel cruelty of families separated and incarcerated at the border. It's the same evil for the same reason; it's easy politics.

I've ranted for years about the way the UK has treated those receiving various benefits - especially those who are sick and disabled.

So why and I angry at democracy? Because this kind of thing is not supposed to be possible in a free and democratic country. The government is meant to be too scared of how the electorate will react to misbehave so badly. It is accountability that makes democracy work.

Over in Purgatory, I am keen to debate the issues around propaganda and populism but here are now I need to shout with righteous anger.... It's the banality that makes me so cross - let's cut legal aid to save some money, I mean why not? I'll tell you why not: COZ IT'S PEANUTS in government spending AND IF YOU FIND YOURSELF NEEDING LEGAL HELP, THERE'S A VERY HIGH CHANCE YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT EITHER.

So we have let this government chip away at everything and the victims of this cruelty are invisible. The sick and disabled who can't even leave the home because they lost the mobility part of their entitlement. So we don't see them. The detained and deported people - well, they're black, so who cares? The vulnerable children who don't get the Social Services support they need because one Social Worker is currently doing the work of 4 people but no one cares until a child dies, then we can blame the Social Worker...

I don't care which party you have supported, we should not let governments behave like this. That's how democracy is supposed to work. It's the accountability that's key.

I got a lot of abuse from a friend a while back for the kind of political things I share of Facebook. I share them because of an optimistic belief about my fellow countrymen and -women. I believe that things like Windrush are only permitted because we don't see. And that if we look, we will see, and if we see, we will speak out and things will change.

But I'm probably wrong.

We seem not to care.

Thus Democracy is dead. We have decided to no longer participate. And this is what happens.

Alien-fucking-fuming-from-Zog
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Comments

  • A Feminine ForceA Feminine Force Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    I used to think Plato’s philosopher king was a bad idea.

    The problem with democracy IMO is that

    1) At its heart its a sophisticated form of mob rule that has the potential to eventually deteriorate into a divisive push pull for power for powers sake such as we witness in the States

    2) sophistication and civility in democracy requires advanced citizenship, education, civility and ethical deliberation on the part of the people exercising it, and that takes far too much time, attention, thought and effort for most or so it seems to me

    It’s been a grand social experiment based on noble ideals but it’s failing.

    I can’t see things improving in the near or distant future.

    AFF
  • Of course, it could be argued that the increasing limitations on across-the-board access to things like the law, decent health care, etc, etc, etc, and the FPTP voting system effectively disenfranchising a huge swathe of the population has in fact moved the UK closer to the democracy of Cleisthenes and the ancient Athenians.

    Yes, I agree that the issue of Legal Aid in particular is a scandal and a badge of shame for British governments. What to do about it? Well, legal aid should be available to all UK citizens whose earnings don't take them into a higher-than-basic tax bracket, and that should apply for both criminal and civil cases. To make that possible, if necessary the government should set-up law firms to carry out what would be (effectively) pro bono work, although such firms should have the ability to take on other caseload that paid more but only if it didn't work to the detriment of the Legal Aid core client base.
  • Neither can I. The Great Orange God-Emperor, The Mad Mophead, and their ilk, along with their loathsome toadies and lickspittles, are on top of the dung-heap.

    But what are the possible alternatives? Communism, of some sort? Anarchy (but only under a wise and benevolent Anarch)?

    It may well be that the future does NOT lie in some form of Democracy, but (having lived all my near-70 years in Peaceful England) it's hard to see what might take its place, and be favourable to the disadvantaged folk @alienfromzog pleads for so eloquently.
  • I thought this might be a thread about vestry / parish council. They pray first and defer to the monarch / priest-minister-pastor.
  • I thought this might be a thread about vestry / parish council. They pray first and defer to the monarch / priest-minister-pastor.

    I thought it was gonna be about governments run by female seabirds.

  • stetson wrote: »
    I thought this might be a thread about vestry / parish council. They pray first and defer to the monarch / priest-minister-pastor.

    I thought it was gonna be about governments run by female seabirds.

    :lol

    Just an alien ranting...
  • Serious question: would you be ranting if Labour had won?
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Odd question - things would surely be heading in a better direction if Labour had won.

    (I’m not a labour member or voter, I’m a member of the Green Party)
    stetson wrote: »
    I thought this might be a thread about vestry / parish council. They pray first and defer to the monarch / priest-minister-pastor.

    I thought it was gonna be about governments run by female seabirds.

    They’d do far better than this shower.
  • The rant seems to be about democracy being defective, and the grounds put forward for that claim appear to be that it produced the "wrong" result. Hence my question.
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    How is voting for another five years of austerity in the interests of anyone who isn't rich? Name me a single tory policy that is objectively in the interests of those who have given them their votes? This is what leads to this anger, which I completely share. You can't because there isn't one; and yet Labour still loses. What the fuck?

    ETA: I am not saying Labour is without flaw, but the virtue of the tories has never been proven, because it can't be. They are plausible liars, and keep being elected because of the plausibility of their lies. An electorate incapable of seeing through this shit and punishing it is truly not fit for purpose because it can't act in its own interests.
  • I find talk of an electorate not being "fit for purpose" scary.
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I find talk of an electorate not being "fit for purpose" scary.

    Yes, I get that, but we are in scary times. That's what scares me, that evidence and interests don't seem to make any difference. What does it take?

    One thing I really don't see is why terminology is scarier than events. Are events made any less scary by not asking this question?
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Serious question: would you be ranting if Labour had won?

    Or to put it another way; would I be ranting if a government that has failed in every conceivable way had lost...?

    Look;
    A government that has a decade-long record of economic failure does not deserve to get reelected.

    A government that effectively removes access to the courts for the majority of its citizens does not deserve to get reelected.

    A government who viciously persecuted its own citizens does not deserve to get reelected.

    And can you seriously tell me they're not going to do it again?

    The economic outlook is bleak.

    Moreover does anyone believe that Priti Patel is not going to do to EU citizens what May and Rudd did to the Windrush generation?

    Our democracy is broken.

    AFZ
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Good rant. I give it five tentacles up.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I find talk of an electorate not being "fit for purpose" scary.

    It is fucking scary, because what @alienfromzog is actually lamenting is that it turns out that people suck. The scariest part is that democracy actually does work: it accurately reflects the majority. The hate-filled, reason-ignoring, selfish lot of us.
  • I think a distinction needs to be drawn between being upset because the Tories got in and concluding that because they did, the system that put them there is fundamentally and terminally flawed.

    To me, throwing away something as established and hard to restore as democracy because one doesn't like one particular outcome suggests exactly the same kind of non-joined-up thinking as the thinking that led to Brexit.

    I also found your terminology scary because describing an entire electorate as "not fit for purpose" suggests a low view of the electorate, i.e. your fellow voters.
  • RooK wrote: »
    what @alienfromzog is actually lamenting is that it turns out that people suck.

    This is true. What I'm worried people are missing is that we all suck. Set aside democracy and you have even more scope for the cultish authoritarianism that produces things like the sex abuse more usually ranted about in Hell. I'm sure Jean Vanier thought "what's needed around here is a really smart person like myself to sort things out", and he had nothing to protect him or his victims from his own worst enemy: himself.
  • Also AFZ, you didn't answer my question.
  • Democracy isn't merely about voting and majority ruling. That's what the power elites want because it gives them basically dictator like powers for a period of time, but it isn't democracy. Healthy democracies have real accountability among leaders, institutions, experts and citizens. They ensure that the decisions made are negotiated and discussed properly. Not just imposed. They are about listening and taking diverse opinions into account. They are not about imposing the voted will of a slim majority of an electorate when this represents one of a number of opinions when added together overweigh the winner. When there are substantial minorities to consider mere majority rule won't do.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Also AFZ, you didn't answer my question.

    Really?
  • Do you really want to do away with democracy, or are you just pissed that it delivered a bad result?
  • It's possible to think democracy sucks, while at the same time acknowledging that everything else sucks a whole lot more.
  • It's possible to think democracy sucks, while at the same time acknowledging that everything else sucks a whole lot more.

    That was Churchill's view. And mine.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Do you really want to do away with democracy, or are you just pissed that it delivered a bad result?

    That's actually a slightly different question :wink:

    No, I do not want to do away with democracy because history shows that democratic accountability is the best weapon we have against tyranny.

    My rant at democracy is driven simply by the fact that it is failing at this - which is for me, the whole point of democracy. The Windrush Betrayal reads like Kafka. My primary point being that for a government who perpetrated Windrush to not be brought down by it is deeply, deeply disturbing.

    If you want to get into a serious discussion about this, then I think Purg is the place and I think there's a lot to be said for constitutional protections against populism. For example, I think most of us here would consider access to the courts as a fundamental right in a free society that is a vital protection of all our other rights. Thus I would, if it were up to me, have constitutional provision for legal aid; because if you can't afford to go to court to enforce your rights then you don't have any rights.

    The point is that I believe in democracy because tyranny is evil. My democracy is failing because my government delivered tyranny on (a sub-group of) its own citizens and was not immediately thrown out of office.

    All the other things on my list are just other examples of bad policies that really hurt real people. Which begs the question, why are such policies popular? (or at least popular enough). For me the answer lies not in the darkness and selfishness of all of us. Although that is real and a factor. I think the answer lies in how effectively our democracy has been subverted - but that's the thread I started in Purg... There's a wider debate about popular mandates vs constitutional limits, about the effectiveness of propaganda, about public engagement in issues, about civics education...etc. etc.

    But this is Hell and I needed to rant. How is it that we have let our government get away with this?

    AFZ
  • You need a better thread title then (l agree with Churchill and @Lamb Chopped too).
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    You need a better thread title then.

    Maybe. But if the whole point of democracy is to prevent tyranny, then I reserve the right to be angry with a democracy that rewards Tyrrany.
  • And I reserve the right to think that misplaced anger can do a lot of damage. Are you angry with democracy, the electorate, or the Tories?
  • I mean, all three?

    The majority of the country voted for progressive centre or left parties. Democracy as it's currently constituted gave the Tories an 80 seat majority.

    So fuck them all.
  • RooK wrote: »
    Good rant. I give it five tentacles up.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I find talk of an electorate not being "fit for purpose" scary.

    It is fucking scary, because what @alienfromzog is actually lamenting is that it turns out that people suck. The scariest part is that democracy actually does work: it accurately reflects the majority. The hate-filled, reason-ignoring, selfish lot of us.

    It doesn't even do that in the states because of the Electoral College.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    I mean, all three?

    Err, your targets appear to be one and a half out of three (democracy as currently constituted and the Tories...)
  • In the UK, democracy has been going quackers for many years, and it's not all the fault of the Tories. For a long time we might have moaned, but basically ducked the question because each step on it's own might not have seemed too bad. Some of those steps:

    1. A move towards "presidentialism" in our political system. A system where our parties become more associated with the individual who happens to be the leader than the broad base of members and policies. A move supported by TV election coverage including, then almost focussing on, "leaders debates"; especially when these don't include the leaders of all the parties or are cited as a reason not to hold hustings for the candidates people will actually vote for (in December we had no hustings at all in this constituency). A move also evident where local party organisations are "encouraged" to select candidates based on loyalty to the current leader, or a particular policy supported by that leader.

    2. The role of the media, which has always been biased to some extent though often overall with some balance with different media outlets biased in different directions. The move for mainstream media towards providing "entertainment" has damaged some of our political reporting, and programmes like Question Time becoming more like some form of reality TV with an appearance that the producers want to boost viewing figures by getting the most outrageous people possible onto the panel and in the audience (the result, IMO, being neither entertaining nor politically informative). The loss of investigative journalism, which by it's nature is expensive with a journalist (or team) spending a long time to produce an article or programme, has lead to a deterioration of political coverage with an emphasis towards covering stories where minimal investigation is needed, and in the case of an organisation such as the BBC more time reporting what others are saying rather than investigating things.

    3. For me, and forgive me for repeating this again as I'm sure you're sick of hearing me say it, the decision of Parliament in 2015, to hold an unprecedented opinion poll on EU membership and to take the unprecedented decision to be bound by the answer from the public on an undefined question, dealt a grievous blow to British democracy. Whether it turns out to be a mortal wound has yet to be seen, but it's increasingly looking as though it's going to destroy democracy in our country, and we're then going to need to resurrect democracy. I've spent so many hours explaining that view over the last 5 years I don't really need to expand on it any more.
  • As to point 3, @'Alan Cresswell' I completely agree.
  • Yes, me too.

    As I've questioned before, what viable alternative to democracy do we have? And how is it to be resurrected when the time comes, as it surely will?
  • If I might offer @alienfromzog some advice: Listen to some Sweet Honey in the Rock. That should fire you right up. Listen especially when they sing about the young, and there roles as elders in the struggle. There is much wisdom in their singing, and they sing from the perspective of women deeply involved in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, a struggle indeed for full liberation, a struggle which will not end in their lifetimes.

    I particularly recommend a work combining the Spiritual "I'm Gunna Stay on the Battlefield" with a poem about the setbacks endured and the battles lost. It is a stunning performance.
  • Jane RJane R Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    ...well, if we really believe in the principle of one person representing all the others in each constituency, we could treat it like jury service and select our MPs randomly. Or select twelve candidates randomly for each constituency and get the electorate to vote for the one they want, though that might be dangerously close to democracy...
  • O! You utter Radical ! To the Tower with you...!!

    Candidates might be chosen who weren't rich, white, or educated at Eton!

    Would be Outrage!
  • Well, if they're good enough to sit on a jury...
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    As I've questioned before, what viable alternative to democracy do we have?

    “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
    ~possibly Churchill
  • RooK wrote: »
    As I've questioned before, what viable alternative to democracy do we have?

    “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
    ~possibly Churchill

    Yep it's Sir Winston. Said in the House of Commons in 1947. Although, his papers suggest he was quoting an unknown academic. He is also quoted as saying:

    The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

    AFZ
  • Whether or not Churchill's thoughts were original, they certainly seem to have been proved correct by recent events, both in this country, and elsewhere.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Serious question: would you be ranting if Labour had won?

    FWIW, my view is yes. It would have shown that, even in a broken system, there can be good results. But fundamentally the system we have is broken, and needs revamping.

    And I am with Alan, that the Brexit vote was the fundamental death knell for "democracy" in this country. It was already broken (FPTP is not democratic, it is a stupid system, and it has been gamed so much over the years that it has no validity any more), but the vile abuse of the system in that vote finished it off.

    Anarchy is the only way forward.
  • O! You utter Radical ! To the Tower with you...!!

    Candidates might be chosen who weren't rich, white, or educated at Eton!

    Would be Outrage!

    My (Labour) MP ran on a campaign of precisely that.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    If I might offer @alienfromzog some advice: Listen to some Sweet Honey in the Rock. That should fire you right up. Listen especially when they sing about the young, and there roles as elders in the struggle. There is much wisdom in their singing, and they sing from the perspective of women deeply involved in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, a struggle indeed for full liberation, a struggle which will not end in their lifetimes.

    I particularly recommend a work combining the Spiritual "I'm Gunna Stay on the Battlefield" with a poem about the setbacks endured and the battles lost. It is a stunning performance.

    Here is the song.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Any changes to the system would need to be voted for. Those in power won’t allow that. They will manipulate the ‘news’ so that people have no idea what they are really voting for (see Brexshit).

    Democracy could be much much better. But it slowly slides, slowly turns into oligarchy - money talks like never before.

    It will take massive shocks to change anything.

    Coronavirus?

    Fire and flood?

    Climate disaster?

    We’ll see.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    You need a better thread title then.

    Maybe. But if the whole point of democracy is to prevent tyranny, then I reserve the right to be angry with a democracy that rewards Tyrrany.

    Seems to me that your key problem is a large percentage of the electorate disagrees with you about what constitutes tyranny.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    You need a better thread title then.

    Maybe. But if the whole point of democracy is to prevent tyranny, then I reserve the right to be angry with a democracy that rewards Tyrrany.

    Seems to me that your key problem is a large percentage of the electorate disagrees with you about what constitutes tyranny.

    We need to look at why that’s the case.

  • Eutychus wrote: »
    You need a better thread title then.

    Maybe. But if the whole point of democracy is to prevent tyranny, then I reserve the right to be angry with a democracy that rewards Tyrrany.

    Seems to me that your key problem is a large percentage of the electorate disagrees with you about what constitutes tyranny.

    Really? Do you really think that most of the public actually think it's ok for their government to deny people their healthcare, make them lose their jobs and homes, arrest them, detain them indefinitely and deport them when they've done nothing wrong? Lets be clear that the crime for which people were made to suffer was primarily the incompetence of the Home Office. I don't think that, as a definition of tyranny is particularly controversial.

    It doesn't stop being tyranny just because it was focused on a minority.

    AFZ
  • Boogie wrote: »
    Any changes to the system would need to be voted for. Those in power won’t allow that. They will manipulate the ‘news’ so that people have no idea what they are really voting for (see Brexshit).

    Democracy could be much much better. But it slowly slides, slowly turns into oligarchy - money talks like never before.

    It will take massive shocks to change anything.

    Coronavirus?

    Fire and flood?

    Climate disaster?

    We’ll see.

    I thought it was usually war, that brings change, plus financial collapse.
  • Well, The Great Orange God-Emperor will probably bring about the first of those...financial collapse may well follow, I suppose.
    :grimace:

    O happy days...
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    I'm not sure the Home Office is incompetent. If you read their releases on various issues about detention etc, it seems they are doing whaat they are expected to do very efficiently. They are racist, focussed on a narrow objective which is frankly wicked, but I do not think incompetent about achieving their target.
    I want to go back to our real universe. (Dr Who reference.)
  • Alas, wicked racists, following the diktats of a wicked, racist, government, can indeed be competent, and efficient.

    Hitler's Germany surely showed us that...
  • Penny S wrote: »
    I'm not sure the Home Office is incompetent. If you read their releases on various issues about detention etc, it seems they are doing what they are expected to do very efficiently. They are racist, focussed on a narrow objective which is frankly wicked, but I do not think incompetent about achieving their target.
    I want to go back to our real universe. (Dr Who reference.)
    Alas, wicked racists, following the diktats of a wicked, racist, government, can indeed be competent, and efficient.

    Hitler's Germany surely showed us that...

    All of that is undoubtedly true and I agree that the Home Office showed classic cold, unfeeling bureaucratic efficiency in enforcing penalties on those deemed to not have a legal right to be here.

    The converse is also true about the inefficiency and incompetence of the HO is dealing with the facts of the cases; people would repeatedly present ample evidence to support their truthful claims of having been in the UK since pre-1971 and thus having the automatic rights they thought they had but rather than review the evidence and stop the whole process they would keep pursuing them. The destruction of documents by the Home Office itself was well-reported. There's also complete nonsense like many of the people affected by this scandal came to the UK on siblings passports. Of course, that is not possible now, but it was back then. However, the victims were faced with Home Office officials who assumed they were lying because they simply did not know this simple fact! Many of these officials were completely ignorant of the relevant law or that people who were born in Jamaica before independence were and are UK citizens.

    That's what I meant by the inefficiency and incompetence of the Home Office. The blame for all this, ultimately, undeniably lies with David Cameron and Theresa May primarily. Both ignored very prescient warnings made in 2014 which essentially laid out what would happen. Cameron apparently said that "The very clever people in the civil service will make it work" and all because he wanted to appear tough on immigration to fend off UKIP.

    Cameron / May / Johnson - you three destroyed my country.

    I cannot get away from the fact that if a government guilty of treating its own fucking citizens this way faced no consequences, then our democracy is fundamentally broken.

    AFZ

This discussion has been closed.