Don't (Just) Shoot the Messager

Remember the banking crisis?  You would have thought that was the end of the good times for those financial institutions.  Er, not really.  Its not that the banks themselves had to try hard to change what seemed inevitable.  They are laying low alright, but will play a long game. Here in Ireland, a change of government was sufficient to move the focus away from the banking crisis.  That change has moved us even further away from the root of the crisis - the ideology that smooths the way for a deregulated and privatised economy. 

The banks were never the real problem, per se.  The banks did carry the can though.  Fianna Fail and the Greens paid the party political penalty, but that is a minor side show.  The political and economic system remain.

So, lets not get too exited about the erosion in influence of one media mogul.  Even one as powerful and influential as Rupert Murdoch.

News International did indeed play a central role in conditioning the public on both sides of the Atlantic.  Together with the Thatcher/Regan axis, it encouraged the working class to believe it was a middle class and that anybody who didn't or couldn't was a 'scrounger'.  Progressive politicians and Trade Union leaders were 'Red this' or 'Red that'.  All Union leaders were 'Barons'.  There was simply no alternative. There was no such thing as society. The end of history was to be championed.

Was News International unique in the media?  Of course not.  With few notable exceptions, the media were on message.  What is important, however, is that legislation was smoothed through enabling the control of large swathes of the media to the favoured press 'Baron'.  In return, said Baron would tweak the conditioning in favour of politicians and/or political parties who not only fitted in to the ideological thrust, but as a bonus to the baron would ensure his business dominated and his shareholders reaped the dividend.

I am enjoying putting the boot into Murdoch as much as anyone else, but he must not just be a scapegoat here.  There are other Barons.  The media, like the banks may ride this out and slide their way back to the job at hand.  The political ideology remains. 

Unfortunately, there are far too few parliamentarians in positions of influence who could drive control of the media and the banks properly into a position where the interests of the greater number of people are served.  I hope that those who are in the political institutions and in the progressive media ensure that this current manifestation of the crisis in capitalism doesn't die like the News of the World.

Some sites

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Broad-Left-Unity/196130577106300#!/pages/Broad-Left-Unity/196130577106300?sk=info

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maybe-Its-Because-By-Vincent-Wood/122752457808295?sk=wall#!/pages/Maybe-Its-Because-By-Vincent-Wood/122752457808295?sk=info

We still need to shift the paradigm.

I am coming to the conclusion that even the most progressive of political parties are stalling.

I know that there are very sound people working away at policy positions and that the left still manage to oppose the worst excesses of the continuing neo-liberal onslaught, but it seems to mean that the problem remains that we are using the current political and economic paradigm as the model to pass our deliberations on.

But that's just Realpolitik right?  People out there expect us to present policy that is familiar, even if they
fundamentally disagree with it.  We have to do with the reality as we find it.  We didn't create it, what can we do? We can analyse using Marx or gramsci of course and that's ok, but none of this moves us away from having to deal with the socio-economic-political landscape that has come to dominate the USA and Europe.

Wrong.

It would be much more interesting and, I believe, necessary to start introducing more creativity into policy.  I
have said before that if policy positions are put out there, it is not beyond the wit and wisdom of all progressive economists to figure out how to finance it.

My dad and people in his generation (the 1940's-70's) believed that the future would hold less physical work and more leisure time for the working class - for everyone.  When do we ever hear anybody on the left seriously advocate less working hours.  Not just a few hours here and there, but a three day week, for example.  What about moving arts and leisure up as political priorities.  The value of time and space - real quality of life issues.  The process of offering a vision that takes us away from wage slavery, ill health, an education system focused on point scoring and not rounded learning and universally available flexible childcare and special needs support requires more than a rebuttal of current policy.  It is a fundamentally a much wider project that must be advanced here if we are to avoid a continued slide into misery for the greater number of us.

None of this is in the political agenda in any serious way in my view and it needs to be introduced.  A serious
debate must begin. It takes brave people to do this in the face of ridicule from some on the left as well as the
usual suspects and it is a longer term project for progressives to embark on, but the fact remains that we are not winning on the battlefield - the paradigm - that exists.  We have to shift the paradigm.

Society: Now There's an Idea!

Society: Now There's an Idea!: "A (friendly) challenge to progressive economists. What if an easily accessible paper was drawn up illustrating the following: What may hav..."

Now There's an Idea!

A (friendly) challenge to progressive economists.

What if an easily accessible paper was drawn up illustrating the following:

• What may have been earned for the people if the banks were nationalised when they were profitable.
• What effective and efficient public utilities could have delivered for us (in money terms) if kept in state control
• The benefits (again, in financial as well as the obvious human) that well regulated worker friendly employment regime would deliver.
• What the fallout from the pursuit of Thatcherism has cost us over the last decade or so.

Why ask for this?

• It can be done.  These arguements have been well made, but as is a common fault of the left, are often over complicated and verbose.
• People must still be confused - they voted in a government pursuing the same ideological policies.
• We all need the ammunition provided in clear - dare I say simple - terms, but backed up with empirical data.

Better still if all of this can be summarised on an A4 sheet!

What do you think?  Up for it?

A Progressive Oppostion

 

 

It looks likely that there will be 14 Sinn Féin and up to 10 progressive left deputies in the incoming Dáil. 

 

These 24 progressive left Representatives need to eclipse Fianna Fail as the opposition to the incoming conservative administration and ensure that victory could be grasped from the jaws of defeat, so to speak.  This is a platform that we could barely imagine a few short weeks ago,

 

The election campaign was dominated bu the specific budgetary issues and the immediacy of the crisis facing the people.  Ideology struggled to feature.  It can now be a central feature of debate from the first day of the incoming Dáil.  The people can hear how and why we are in this crisis and just how similar FG and FF are.  It will also continue to force the members of the Labour Party to examine how best to use their political strength. 

 

I would make a particular appeal to the members of the ULA to resist the temptation to take an elitist view of what it means to be on the progressive left. The days of political sectarianism on the left need to be left behind.

 

The British Labour politician Tony Benn described British Labour something like this.  Labour is not a socialist party, but it has many Socialist within it.  SF could be described that way,  Certainly, the ULA should reach out to the membership of SF.  It would be good for both groups.  All activism is educational and it works both ways.

Unfolding

Watching the counts unfold.  If the ULA can put aside some of their sectarian antipathy to SF and build a progressive opposition inside and outside Leinster House, then we are getting somewhere.