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Oh, and for all you “vote the Tories out, get a labour government” fantasists: “the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has ruled out introducing a wealth tax or putting up the top rate of income tax”
Labour aren’t worth your vote. We need to make our own political change now.
You don't always vote for what you want under FPTP. It is fairly evident through polls that most want PR voting. Until that happens you vote for what is tactically best for you.
What are my options when the most important thing for me at the next election is remove this corrupt group from office?
Your option is to get involved with direct action and mutual aid in your area. You can’t vote corruption out of power. Corruption basically is power. Vote for the least worst option, sure, but we need to do more. And I’m not talking about peaceful protest.
Because of FPTP direct action is totally ignored in the UK unless it has a bearing in the swing seat areas.
I get very annoyed at green protesters getting themselves locked up to gain attention. MPs do not give a rat's arse. The Tories used their actions to stimy other protests with laws. Most people want to push for net zero with their protests.
We really need that PR voting system and a change in our education system. People need to understand critical thinking and how to find factual evidence. This should be done at school level imo. Above all else is PR voting. FPTP is far too easy to manipulate, which is why we have a two party state.
No, you’re not getting this, I’m guessing you don’t understand what I mean by direct action. I’m not saying that direct action will impact elections. I’m saying that elections aren’t the way we’ll change the system.
Elections are just smoke and mirrors to manufacture your consent and to make you compliant. When I say “get involved with direct action”, I don’t mean go campaigning for a better political party, I mean creating an alternative before tearing the state down.
Like PR voting?
No. Nothing to do with voting. Just forget that voting exists. Imagine that the politicians are unelected. How would you go about changing the system in that scenario? That’s how you need to be thinking, because that’s essentially the situation that we’re in.
No elections just means a dictatorship. Who would get to decide who runs the country.
No, it doesn’t, that’s a very narrow perspective - I’m guessing that you’re quite young and you’re not familiar with alternative systems of organising society.
There are many alternatives, but I like the idea of consensus based decision-making. It’s a little bit like direct democracy - instead of voting for people to represent you, instead you directly get to support or block decisions made about the society you live in.
For example, currently, we elect politicians to represent us, and we try to elect a politician who would solve climate change. But that doesn’t seem to work. Imagine if, instead, we could all directly vote on an idea - whether or not we should end fossil fuel subsidies, for example? That’s direct democracy, but it gets rid of electoral politics. For full context, I don’t support that kind of direct democracy, but there are countless alternatives to representative democracy, I just wanted to share one which was simple and easy to explain.
This made me smile. It infers naivety is present when clearly it is not.
Now that you have gave it a name I know exactly what you mean. Switzerland are the most prominent that I knew who use direct democracy. Full list here.
I think we need to agree to disagree on that one. I am not in favour of direct democracy because it relies on the people being educated on all issues. Brexit showing just how bad an issue can go.
I don't know enough about the different STV systems to favour one over the other. Wales has adopted STV. Mark Drakeford speaks highly of it, but I do not understand if it is fully protected against manipulation as FPTP is. I favour a PR voting system, while keeping an open mind on STV. I dread that Labour may look at STV over PR. Simply because you will not know just how corruptible it is until someone does it.
I literally just said I’m not talking about direct democracy. It was just an example of an alternative, and one that I specifically said I didn’t support.
All cards on the table, since you’re trying to understand my position, I’m a libertarian socialist. I support the abolition of money, the police, prisons, social classes, states and all unjustified hierarchies. I believe that power ultimately corrupts anyone who wields it and the only solution is to abolish all forms of power as far as is possible.
I think a good way to structure society would be groups of approximately 50-150 people (but absolutely no more than 200) represented by someone in their community in a council of delegates where decisions are made. The representative would not make decisions on behalf of their community but rather would act as a liaison between the community and the larger council. Proposals made at meetings of the council would be brought back to the communities to be discussed and for consensus to be built and a decision to be reached (or for a request for more information / clarification) and then that feedback would be brought to the council, where the delegates would share the feedback/decisions made by their community and they would make amends to the proposal to make it work. The barrier for approval for a proposal to be accepted would be high - something like 90% but certainly no lower than 75% - meaning that true consensus has to be reached, rather than a tyranny of the majority.
This is the model used by some cool groups such as workers/housing co-operatives, and I think it would work well for larger societies. Maybe it’s been used by large societies, I honestly don’t know.
Your best bet it's voting against the worst party. That's FPTP. Until that's gone there's little point in voting for the party you actually want.
Whether we have PR or not doesn’t matter, we cannot turn a system against itself. A political party disruptive to the status quo would not be allowed to gain power. Party politics will not save us. We need bold action that goes far beyond voting.
What do you suggest? And what do you suggest should come after?
I suggest joining the IWW, getting involved in direct action and mutual aid and working within your communities to build alternative structures. Start or join a housing co-op or a workers co-op (or both), try to make changes to your living situation which make you more self-sufficient (growing your own food, getting solar panels) and just being helpful, generous and kind.
I think what should come after is a world where people work together to provide everyone with what they need without any abusive structures of power.