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Post by daveythefatboy on Mar 29, 2021 15:19:59 GMT
The other thing is it's the nearest thing to a shared culture. You can't not have an opinion on Trump or Brexit can you? But I can certainly see it can get too much sometimes. I'll get days where I'll purposely avoid it. Interesting point. When we have so little shared culture and shared moments to discuss around the 'ol watercool this kind of stuff is maybe some kind of substitute. We've gone from, "did you see Cheers last night?" to "what do you think about Brexit?". Like you I have increasingly turned off. I haven't been watching any covid news at all for example and get my info through the lass. She had to explain the whole bubble thing to me cos I didn't have a clue. I don't use Twitter anymore and barely read the news. I feel happier for it I have to say. Is this me just moving towards a position of self imposed ignorance? To some degree I guess but, frankly, who cares? Anyone fancy a game of chess? The thing with modern politics is that it is largely a cultural argument dressed up as a political one. For the most part, we aren’t arguing policy. Not really. What we’re seeing in America right now is two tribes at war. One has cultural dominance, larger numbers, and an inefficient voting coalition due to the high concentration of its voters in urban centers. The other tribe feels culturally threatened, so they use their advantage in the political arena to fight back. That’s why the big issues from the right right now are things like Dr. Seuss and ‘cancel culture,’ with the only policies of note being about making it harder to vote. They don’t even bother to suggest policies related to cancel culture, because there are none. They use it as a tribal signifier to drive voters into their tent, where holding on to political power is its own end. Why? The left must be punished for the culture’s rejection of the right. It’s like Seinfeld. A show about nothing.
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Post by tory on Mar 31, 2021 8:34:29 GMT
I got the Councillor position I applied for in my local parish. That means discussing the village's issues and looking at practical steps to improve things. It's not glamorous and is mostly administrative in nature, sitting in on meetings about problems with parking, anti-social behaviour and the like, going through minutes. But I wanted to get involved and help.
To me, in Britain at least, that's the real core of democracy - from the bottom up, knowing your local community and those issues, and trying to navigate them. From that point, you can move, say, from village to town and then onto county. What I've found living where I do now is that many problems are generational and structural. For example, traffic is a massive issue in TW. It cannot be meaningfully solved in any real way. To do so would mean huge road infrastructure on green belt land that would be catastrophic to the countryside. Compromises of some sort are needed.
Often you'll find, as I'm sure I will do, that meaningful attempts to change or solve issues will be met by people who have been trying to address those issues for many years. My brother, as a conservationist of 40 years experience or so, meets these sorts of people all the time. They're young, excited, galvanised perhaps by powerful narratives, particularly in ecology, and want to do all they can to help. However, what they often find is that they become frustrated very quickly because, you know what, there are people who have been having these conversations and attempts to change things for many years and they often understand the issues more deeply because they've been in the game for so long. They then get fed up because they've not been able to address these problems in the zesty manner they had hoped for, they'd not had the powerful sheen of being that white knight on a horse saving shit and move elsewhere. Most of the time the issues are generational. They're not new. These older people are often, guess what, more experienced and know the lie of the land a lot more. Yes, sometimes they may be somewhat calcified, yes they may be worn down and fresh energy is useful. But what is very common is that people with meaningful attempts to affect change can often be frustrated by the fact that what they think is a new "problem" very often isn't.
I often feel that many of the younger generation of activists want meaning in their lives, which is why they pounce on grievances and the like. It's a Crusade. One can effect change. I wouldn't be so pessimistic to say that people can't do it because it can happen, but I think looking at local issues first is often the best place to understand people, culture and places.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2021 10:29:57 GMT
The anti Wolfie Smith!
I don't have much faith in some/most of the up coming young politicians. Some seems good, logical and know to play the game. Others just seems to be the examples of what us older folk give out about. Impatient, not willing to play the game, and not realizing you're never ever gonna 100% get what you want. I'm more worried about the next generation of cunt politician who knows how to do all of the above, and uses it to do bad things.
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Post by fearlessfreap on Mar 31, 2021 11:19:37 GMT
Count me as one who feels that once you get past the local level, all politicians are self-serving scumbags - right, left or moderate. They've all did extremely questionable things to get where they are. Fuck 'em. Now that Trump is out of office I can go back to ignoring them.
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