Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Friday, December 13, 2019
Election 2019 : The failure of politics
I haven't really been writing politically here.
I've been writing more on Quora, where at least there's some kind of audience.
But this started as an answer today, and wandered so far away from the original question, that I realize it needs a different home.
So here it is, my take on the disastrous UK elections of December 2019.
Originally launched as an answer to the question : How damaging is the general election defeat to Jeremy Corbyn?
Corbyn himself is gone.
Toast.
That’s the rules of the game. No leader survives this. I don’t suppose he thinks any differently.
The fight is about what the defeat “really means” and what it implies for Labour.
And how much of his legacy is going to be preserved vs. jettisoned.
How damaging is this defeat to, for want of a better word, “Corbynism” within Labour?
The defeat doesn’t change the underlying fact that the Labour “coalition” is fragmenting into increasingly distinct factions with fewer interests and even less “consciousness” in common. In fact, this defeat simply re-emphasizes that.
I’d hoped - and I admit that in retrospect this was wishful thinking - that Labour’s policies like the neutral stance on Brexit, and the bold promises to redistribute wealth to the poorest people and regions, might have held that coalition together sufficiently to at least force a draw with the Tories in this election.
But I was wrong.
The collapse of the “red wall” is pretty strong evidence that the Labour coalition HAS collapsed.
People rejected Labour for all kinds of reasons. And undoubtedly perception of Corbyn personally and his history were part of that. But it’s clear that a whole tranche of people in those crucial Northern seats abandoned Labour because they wanted to see Brexit “done”. They gave their votes either to the Brexit Party or Tories. Relatively fewer switched Lib Dem or Green, which is what you might have expected if it was largely an anti-Corbyn vote by people otherwise sticking to their political compass. No, this was a pro-Brexit vote.
The original Brexit referendum had allowed those people to see Boris as on the same “team” as them; which obviously made them feel warmer towards him than they had felt to someone like Theresa May. And then Labour’s perceived bait-and-switch (campaigning as committed to Brexit in 2017, to advocating a second referendum in 2019) discredited Corbyn with those Leavers. And once that had happened, other negatives they read about Corbyn in the Tory press resonated with them too.
Hold on … even as I write this, I realize that I’ve wandered off the point …
There are many narratives about why Corbyn failed. But the real issue is not which one is “right”.
The real issue is that each speaks to a different fragment of the disintegrating coalition.
The story I gave above makes sense to me. And people in my faction. But there’s a story that makes sense to those people who said from the start that Corbyn is a disaster.
There are people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was too Brexity. And people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was too Remainy. There were people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was a throwback to old Labour of the 1970s. And people who had enthusiastically voted for that old Labour in the 70s but didn’t like him because he was a middle-class London metropolitan who was “out of touch” with working people.
Whichever of those problems you had with Labour, they are really a reflection of which fragment of the disintegrating Labour coalition you are part of.
And those different factions aren’t coming back together just because Labour replaces Corbyn with a different leader. They increasingly dislike each other.
The Leave working class and the Remainer middle class in London don’t just disagree. They are antagonistic. They think the others are “the problem”. They will reject a politician who they associated with the other side.
This is the culture war which has been bubbling away within Brexit.
I supported Corbyn.
Enthusiastically.
Because I thought that at least he was trying to address that problem. He was aware of the factions coming apart. And his policies and stances were explicit attempts to hold the Labour coalition together. (Whereas his critics rarely seemed to acknowledge the issue at all and were happy just to push for their particular faction’s politics.)
Nevertheless, Corbyn failed; he couldn’t manage to be all things to all these different groups. And the rules of the game are that he now has to go.
That’s fair.
But I don’t see how any other Labour politician can pull those parts back together either.
The debate is already kicking off about whether another politician from London fits the bill. Or whether it needs to be someone from the North. Because … identity, I suppose. The pro-Corbyn faction will insist that the momentum of the Corbyn swing to the left is kept up. Because what’s the point of Labour winning power if it doesn’t do anything useful with it? And the right-wing of Labour will insist that Labour pulls back to the right, because what’s the point of a “magnificent manifesto” if you never get near implementing it?
Is there a right "solution" to that problem? Can all these factions be brought back under a single umbrella?
Aditya Chakrabortty had a good column yesterday in which he points out that from the perspective of Pontypool “The Westminster lot were all “liars” and London was a leech, always hungry for more … This is what decades of distrust produces. Not magical thinking or unstinting belief in posh-boy fairytales, but a deep and sullen resentment. A nihilism that neither party nor any other democratic institution can even get their hands around, let alone find a response to.”
People are sick to death of politicians. They don’t believe their vote can do any practical good. So they might as well vote for “symbolic” things like sovereignty or “Britishness” which at least look like something that “belongs to them” and they can participate in. Whereas the jobs are never coming back and the new hospitals will never get built, despite all the promises in the manifestos, so why vote on those issues?
That’s what really did for Labour in these elections. Apathy and despair. Some of the collapsed “red wall” seats, turn-out was down at 52%.
Corbyn is not just damaged, he’s destroyed by this failure. But he failed because of a much deeper damage. The destruction of faith in politics.
This is what is deeply depressing today. Say what you like about Corbyn’s Labour project. However much you thought Corbyn came across badly. Or had dodgy connections. Or that Labour’s plans were unrealistic. This was a real political project, noting real problems, and offering real solutions to them.
Boris Johnson produces a good upbeat impression of politics. But even the people who voted for Johnson don’t actually believe it or trust him. They voted for the spectacle of of a bumptious toff offering fake solutions (an “oven-ready deal”) to a fake problem (the EU).
And as vox-pop after vox-pop shows. The people who voted for him against Corbyn don’t even believe that he’s telling them the truth or will actually do anything for them.
They voted for the spectacle itself.
Obviously, I find that bewildering. And maybe you do too.
But you should realize that if your focus is on Jeremy Corbyn, and what this election means for him. Or what it means for his faction within Labour, you’re missing the bigger picture.
This is our real problem. The destruction of the belief that a political party can do anything at all.
I've been writing more on Quora, where at least there's some kind of audience.
But this started as an answer today, and wandered so far away from the original question, that I realize it needs a different home.
So here it is, my take on the disastrous UK elections of December 2019.
Originally launched as an answer to the question : How damaging is the general election defeat to Jeremy Corbyn?
Corbyn himself is gone.
Toast.
That’s the rules of the game. No leader survives this. I don’t suppose he thinks any differently.
The fight is about what the defeat “really means” and what it implies for Labour.
And how much of his legacy is going to be preserved vs. jettisoned.
How damaging is this defeat to, for want of a better word, “Corbynism” within Labour?
The defeat doesn’t change the underlying fact that the Labour “coalition” is fragmenting into increasingly distinct factions with fewer interests and even less “consciousness” in common. In fact, this defeat simply re-emphasizes that.
I’d hoped - and I admit that in retrospect this was wishful thinking - that Labour’s policies like the neutral stance on Brexit, and the bold promises to redistribute wealth to the poorest people and regions, might have held that coalition together sufficiently to at least force a draw with the Tories in this election.
But I was wrong.
The collapse of the “red wall” is pretty strong evidence that the Labour coalition HAS collapsed.
People rejected Labour for all kinds of reasons. And undoubtedly perception of Corbyn personally and his history were part of that. But it’s clear that a whole tranche of people in those crucial Northern seats abandoned Labour because they wanted to see Brexit “done”. They gave their votes either to the Brexit Party or Tories. Relatively fewer switched Lib Dem or Green, which is what you might have expected if it was largely an anti-Corbyn vote by people otherwise sticking to their political compass. No, this was a pro-Brexit vote.
The original Brexit referendum had allowed those people to see Boris as on the same “team” as them; which obviously made them feel warmer towards him than they had felt to someone like Theresa May. And then Labour’s perceived bait-and-switch (campaigning as committed to Brexit in 2017, to advocating a second referendum in 2019) discredited Corbyn with those Leavers. And once that had happened, other negatives they read about Corbyn in the Tory press resonated with them too.
Hold on … even as I write this, I realize that I’ve wandered off the point …
There are many narratives about why Corbyn failed. But the real issue is not which one is “right”.
The real issue is that each speaks to a different fragment of the disintegrating coalition.
The story I gave above makes sense to me. And people in my faction. But there’s a story that makes sense to those people who said from the start that Corbyn is a disaster.
There are people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was too Brexity. And people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was too Remainy. There were people who didn’t like Corbyn because he was a throwback to old Labour of the 1970s. And people who had enthusiastically voted for that old Labour in the 70s but didn’t like him because he was a middle-class London metropolitan who was “out of touch” with working people.
Whichever of those problems you had with Labour, they are really a reflection of which fragment of the disintegrating Labour coalition you are part of.
And those different factions aren’t coming back together just because Labour replaces Corbyn with a different leader. They increasingly dislike each other.
The Leave working class and the Remainer middle class in London don’t just disagree. They are antagonistic. They think the others are “the problem”. They will reject a politician who they associated with the other side.
This is the culture war which has been bubbling away within Brexit.
I supported Corbyn.
Enthusiastically.
Because I thought that at least he was trying to address that problem. He was aware of the factions coming apart. And his policies and stances were explicit attempts to hold the Labour coalition together. (Whereas his critics rarely seemed to acknowledge the issue at all and were happy just to push for their particular faction’s politics.)
Nevertheless, Corbyn failed; he couldn’t manage to be all things to all these different groups. And the rules of the game are that he now has to go.
That’s fair.
But I don’t see how any other Labour politician can pull those parts back together either.
The debate is already kicking off about whether another politician from London fits the bill. Or whether it needs to be someone from the North. Because … identity, I suppose. The pro-Corbyn faction will insist that the momentum of the Corbyn swing to the left is kept up. Because what’s the point of Labour winning power if it doesn’t do anything useful with it? And the right-wing of Labour will insist that Labour pulls back to the right, because what’s the point of a “magnificent manifesto” if you never get near implementing it?
Is there a right "solution" to that problem? Can all these factions be brought back under a single umbrella?
Aditya Chakrabortty had a good column yesterday in which he points out that from the perspective of Pontypool “The Westminster lot were all “liars” and London was a leech, always hungry for more … This is what decades of distrust produces. Not magical thinking or unstinting belief in posh-boy fairytales, but a deep and sullen resentment. A nihilism that neither party nor any other democratic institution can even get their hands around, let alone find a response to.”
People are sick to death of politicians. They don’t believe their vote can do any practical good. So they might as well vote for “symbolic” things like sovereignty or “Britishness” which at least look like something that “belongs to them” and they can participate in. Whereas the jobs are never coming back and the new hospitals will never get built, despite all the promises in the manifestos, so why vote on those issues?
That’s what really did for Labour in these elections. Apathy and despair. Some of the collapsed “red wall” seats, turn-out was down at 52%.
Corbyn is not just damaged, he’s destroyed by this failure. But he failed because of a much deeper damage. The destruction of faith in politics.
This is what is deeply depressing today. Say what you like about Corbyn’s Labour project. However much you thought Corbyn came across badly. Or had dodgy connections. Or that Labour’s plans were unrealistic. This was a real political project, noting real problems, and offering real solutions to them.
Boris Johnson produces a good upbeat impression of politics. But even the people who voted for Johnson don’t actually believe it or trust him. They voted for the spectacle of of a bumptious toff offering fake solutions (an “oven-ready deal”) to a fake problem (the EU).
And as vox-pop after vox-pop shows. The people who voted for him against Corbyn don’t even believe that he’s telling them the truth or will actually do anything for them.
They voted for the spectacle itself.
Obviously, I find that bewildering. And maybe you do too.
But you should realize that if your focus is on Jeremy Corbyn, and what this election means for him. Or what it means for his faction within Labour, you’re missing the bigger picture.
This is our real problem. The destruction of the belief that a political party can do anything at all.
Monday, February 05, 2018
I stand by this Quora answer on Marx.
But there is something a little bit unnerving about Quora telling me they just sent it to 100,000+ people.
But there is something a little bit unnerving about Quora telling me they just sent it to 100,000+ people.
Monday, June 26, 2017
The Resistance To Corbyn
Jacobin Magazine has a good overview of how much the media / establishment opposed Corbyn during the last two years.
It just makes his performance in the election all the more impressive.
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
George Monbiot :
Who, in this fissile age, would wish for a prime minister with no discernible convictions, no perceivable moral core? Who, when we need courage in government more than at any time in the recent past, wants a prime minister who rolls over to everyone from the Daily Mail to King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud? Who, as we face negotiations with the European Union that will determine the future of this nation – negotiations that demand the utmost delicacy and care – wants a government peopled with buffoons, blusterers and bullies?
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Political Quote of the Day
Shern Ren Tee on Quora.
Threatening a former director of the FBI with secret tapes is like threatening Stephen Hawking with middle school math homework. I have no idea how the FBI would respond, but if they really took Donald Trump at his word, his Tweet as an invitation to spar, the ensuing rout will be more one-sided than a Möbius strip.
*munches popcorn*
Wednesday, May 03, 2017
UK Delusion
Simon Tilford :
Britain’s sense of economic invulnerability is even more puzzling. Why does a country that is significantly poorer than Germany, with fewer internationally competitive industries and greater dependence on foreign capital and managerial expertise, believe it can afford to quit the single market? Britain’s economic performance is no better than France’s and on some important measures – especially productivity – far worse. Yet nobody from France’s political mainstream seriously thinks that the French economy would thrive outside the EU.
Much of the British elite know little about how Britain’s economy compares. Few realise that three-quarters of the country is poorer than the EU-15 average; that Britain’s growth performance has been mediocre at best; or that there are relatively few British-owned and managed businesses with a strong record of growth. There are bright spots in the British economy, but its commanding heights owe much to foreign capital and expertise. Foreign-owned businesses generate more than half the country’s exports, and many of these exports are intermediate goods – links in international, predominantly European, supply chains. These companies are especially vulnerable to Britain leaving the single market. If the British economy were more locally owned and managed, it would be easier to understand the British complacency over the economic impact of Brexit. But for a developed country so dependent on foreign capital to do something so damaging to its ability to attract that capital has few precedents.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
2017 Q1: What is the politics of the social media age?
Context: 2017 Questions.
Pretty much everything I've believed in and championed over the last 15 years in terms of blogging, social media, freedom for anyone to speak out without gatekeepers etc. has come true.
And the result is what we've seen in 2016 ... President Trump, Brexit, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff etc. All driven by massive disinformation campaigns across social media. We are in a "post-truth" society or as I actually predicted many years ago "the end of consensus". Conspiracy theories are the epistemic mode of netocracy.
So what now?
"What now", in the sense of how can we reinvent a politics which "works"? And "what now" as in what are the responsibilities and strategies for people like me who work in software and have championed the spread of technologies of open communication? What can and should we try to build next to "fix" the problems we've caused? Finally "what now" as in what actual policies can be advocated for netocracy where many traditional gatekeeping epistemic strategies are no longer available.
In one sense we are seeing a burst of authoritarianism which is covering the profound weakness of governments to control what's going on. Everyone in power wants to control borders to prevent the movement of people. When their real "problems" are flow of information and capital which remain harder to control than ever. Scapegoating the poor is the standard tactic of an elite in trouble, of course. I now think we're moving to "scapegoating bodies" for the frustrations and failures to constrain information (including finance which is now revealed as a subset of information).
Pretty much everything I've believed in and championed over the last 15 years in terms of blogging, social media, freedom for anyone to speak out without gatekeepers etc. has come true.
And the result is what we've seen in 2016 ... President Trump, Brexit, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff etc. All driven by massive disinformation campaigns across social media. We are in a "post-truth" society or as I actually predicted many years ago "the end of consensus". Conspiracy theories are the epistemic mode of netocracy.
So what now?
"What now", in the sense of how can we reinvent a politics which "works"? And "what now" as in what are the responsibilities and strategies for people like me who work in software and have championed the spread of technologies of open communication? What can and should we try to build next to "fix" the problems we've caused? Finally "what now" as in what actual policies can be advocated for netocracy where many traditional gatekeeping epistemic strategies are no longer available.
In one sense we are seeing a burst of authoritarianism which is covering the profound weakness of governments to control what's going on. Everyone in power wants to control borders to prevent the movement of people. When their real "problems" are flow of information and capital which remain harder to control than ever. Scapegoating the poor is the standard tactic of an elite in trouble, of course. I now think we're moving to "scapegoating bodies" for the frustrations and failures to constrain information (including finance which is now revealed as a subset of information).
Sunday, January 08, 2017
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Harden your hearts and sacrifice your values - you were made for a nicer world than this, but you are made of food, and god is really busy.
— Vinay Gupta (@leashless) November 9, 2016
Friday, September 02, 2016
Theresa May will lead us into a bleak future
Martin Kettle has an insightful comment on current division within Tory government's approach to Brexit. Not for or against, but which gets priority, controlling immigration (No 10) or free market (treasury).
Since No 10 will ultimately win that battle, the question is how the Treasury will react. In its determination to maintain the City of London’s global position outside the single market, the Treasury will find itself inexorably drawn down the road towards remaking the UK as an offshore, low-tax financial haven. Just at the very moment when the EU locks horns with Apple over sweetheart tax deals, so Britain may roll out the welcome mat to international corporations such as Apple, offering Britain as the new Ireland, or as a European Singapore.
Thursday, July 07, 2016
David Blanchflower :
GDP per head is up just over 1% since 2008 and real wages are still 7% below their level at the start of the Great Recession in 2008. The problem is that many who voted leave thought this was all about immigration and EU rules, whereas in reality it was mostly about austerity. The Poles, the Czechs and the Hungarians came to the UK to work; they have higher employment rates than those born in the UK and pay far more into the system than they take out. It is clear that the rising number of immigrants has put pressure on public services but this was mostly because Osborne under-invested in services in order to shrink the state. They paid their taxes, but Slasher didn’t invest that money in new schools, houses and hospitals.
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
Bashibazouks
Momus is seriously pissed off with Brexit.
And enlisting a world-class vituperator to help him express his rage. :-)
Meanwhile there's a 30 year retrospective album of Momus songs coming out, selected by the man himself.
Thoughts on the tracklist.
I see why Lucky like St. Sebastian has to be there, though I'd like to see Little Lord Obedience or The Rape of Lucretia rather than Paper Wraps Rock.
From Poison Boyfriend I don't particularly dig Murderers, the Hope of Women. Would rather see Eleven Executioners, Violets or the haunting Islington John. The other two are obviously the right choices. (I'm a big fan of Sex for the Disabled, but understand its historic moment is over.)
Great selection from Tender Pervert and Don't Stop the Night.
Morality is Vanity is an excellent song.
Hipopotamomus? Meh! Bluestocking is throwaway. Marquis of Sadness is much wittier and has all the "perv" credential Momus might want here. Personally I used to like Ventriloquists and Dolls but began enjoying The Painter and his Model more. Hipopotamomus itself and Monkey for Sally are far more musically striking and disturbing. Song in Contravention is more beautifully lush. This is a weak selection from one of Momus's best albums.
Too much Voyager. Voyager and Summer Holiday 1999 are classics. Cibachrome Blue if you want to capture the overall feel. But Spacewalk is excess to requirements. (And I think Afterglow is better if you insist on 4 tracks from this album.)
Platinum fine. Enlightenment is a good song ruined by a couple of horribly clunky lines that spoil what would otherwise be emotionally powerful. Rhetoric, nah! I'd have Breathless instead. And I love Christmas on Earth. Shame not to find a way to fit it in.
Not enough Ultraconformist. Last of the Window Cleaners obviously has to be there. But there are underrated classics like Ultraconformist itself and The Mother-in-Law. The Cheque's in the Post is a bit of a crowdpleaser that doesn't charm me much.
Philosophy of Momus is one of his weaker albums. As close to "filler" as Momus gets. He's right about Sadness of Things and Cabinet. I'm not sure Microworlds adds much. 20 Vodka Jellies, OTOH, is another "bit random" collection, packed with pleasurable upbeat tunes. London 1888 and End of History are obviously big songs. I'd have been inclined to try to find space for a couple more. There are plenty of greats to choose from on this album.
Ping Pong was wildly hyped. But I think he's right to just stick with the much covered I Want You, But I Don't Need You and The Age of Information (an incredibly prescient piece of internet philosophy)
Born to be Adored is great. I don't like Old Friend, New Flame. But I see why it's pretty definitive of Momus and the Analog Baroque moment.
Stars Forever is so varied musically and tied up to its concept (song-portraits of patrons) that it would be hard to get a "representative sample". About 70% of the Stars Forever songs are great and the two he's chosen are from that 70%. But they aren't particular stand-outs. The most interesting thing about Tinnitus is that it's really looking forward to the Folktronic style he goes on to explore in the next album. And mysteriously NOTHING from the Folktronic album makes it into this compilation. Is he just going for a twofer? Trying have one song represent both Stars Forever and Folktronic? Looks like it. He's already on disk 3 and only half-way through his spectacular discography.
Plus there ARE two songs from Folktronic : Pygmalism and Going for a Walk with a Line. And these obviously HAVE to be in the collection as they're two of his best songs from this period (if not two of his best songs. full stop.) But they're from the "extras" part of the disk, not Folktronic proper (at least that's how I read them). Perhaps it was hard to find one. Finnegan the Folk Hero of HTML is a bit twee. Psychopathis Sexualis maybe?
Oskar Tennis Champion is one of Momus's greatest albums. Certainly the extremely inventive beginning of his "modern" (2000s+ ) style. It deserves to be well represented. No arguments about Beowulf and The Laird of Inversnecky, though I'm surprised by Scottish Lips. I'd have thought Is It Because I'm A Pirate? would be the obvious third here.
He's right to skip quickly over Otto Spooky. In my opinion, Momus's least pleasurable album. Even though it has Bantom Boys and Cockle Pickers which are ambitious experiments. Life of the Fields is arguably a kind of last hurrah of of the Folktronic style and maybe appears for that reason. It's so so though.
Ocky Milk, in contrast, is like Vodka Jellies, another compendium of big, enjoyable tunes (that also manages to competently incorporate quite a lot of his weird experimentation). It's under-represented here. Though perhaps hard to do justice to it.
Of course, now he's having to rush. We're half-way through disk 3 and we're only starting on the really new stuff. Home produced albums which tend to have more songs on them than those made with expensive studio time in the 80s. The lush Joemus collaboration Widow Twankie deserves its slot here. Hypnoprism is woefully under-represented. As is Thunderclown. In comparison, two songs from Bibliotek seems generous. Though Erase, Momus's experiment with another folktronicesque genre - Hauntology - is worthwhile. Two each from Bambi, Terpsicore and Glyptothek are fair. Though I'd prefer Catholic App, Unreconstructed or Spore to The Hiker. (System of Usher is fantastic.)
And I wish he'd found room for Old Nick at the end. While Momus's last-of-the-album mawkfests (Ex-erotomane, Gibbous Moon) are often legendary, and The Vaudevillian is the uber-tearjerker of an ending, Old Nick's sly twist on the convention is equally fulfilling, and somehow sums up the Momus project better.
Anyway looks a great compilation for those who don't know or have Momus's ouvre. (I pretty much do have all these tracks, most of them legally.)
And enlisting a world-class vituperator to help him express his rage. :-)
Meanwhile there's a 30 year retrospective album of Momus songs coming out, selected by the man himself.
Thoughts on the tracklist.
I see why Lucky like St. Sebastian has to be there, though I'd like to see Little Lord Obedience or The Rape of Lucretia rather than Paper Wraps Rock.
From Poison Boyfriend I don't particularly dig Murderers, the Hope of Women. Would rather see Eleven Executioners, Violets or the haunting Islington John. The other two are obviously the right choices. (I'm a big fan of Sex for the Disabled, but understand its historic moment is over.)
Great selection from Tender Pervert and Don't Stop the Night.
Morality is Vanity is an excellent song.
Hipopotamomus? Meh! Bluestocking is throwaway. Marquis of Sadness is much wittier and has all the "perv" credential Momus might want here. Personally I used to like Ventriloquists and Dolls but began enjoying The Painter and his Model more. Hipopotamomus itself and Monkey for Sally are far more musically striking and disturbing. Song in Contravention is more beautifully lush. This is a weak selection from one of Momus's best albums.
Too much Voyager. Voyager and Summer Holiday 1999 are classics. Cibachrome Blue if you want to capture the overall feel. But Spacewalk is excess to requirements. (And I think Afterglow is better if you insist on 4 tracks from this album.)
Platinum fine. Enlightenment is a good song ruined by a couple of horribly clunky lines that spoil what would otherwise be emotionally powerful. Rhetoric, nah! I'd have Breathless instead. And I love Christmas on Earth. Shame not to find a way to fit it in.
Not enough Ultraconformist. Last of the Window Cleaners obviously has to be there. But there are underrated classics like Ultraconformist itself and The Mother-in-Law. The Cheque's in the Post is a bit of a crowdpleaser that doesn't charm me much.
Philosophy of Momus is one of his weaker albums. As close to "filler" as Momus gets. He's right about Sadness of Things and Cabinet. I'm not sure Microworlds adds much. 20 Vodka Jellies, OTOH, is another "bit random" collection, packed with pleasurable upbeat tunes. London 1888 and End of History are obviously big songs. I'd have been inclined to try to find space for a couple more. There are plenty of greats to choose from on this album.
Ping Pong was wildly hyped. But I think he's right to just stick with the much covered I Want You, But I Don't Need You and The Age of Information (an incredibly prescient piece of internet philosophy)
Born to be Adored is great. I don't like Old Friend, New Flame. But I see why it's pretty definitive of Momus and the Analog Baroque moment.
Stars Forever is so varied musically and tied up to its concept (song-portraits of patrons) that it would be hard to get a "representative sample". About 70% of the Stars Forever songs are great and the two he's chosen are from that 70%. But they aren't particular stand-outs. The most interesting thing about Tinnitus is that it's really looking forward to the Folktronic style he goes on to explore in the next album. And mysteriously NOTHING from the Folktronic album makes it into this compilation. Is he just going for a twofer? Trying have one song represent both Stars Forever and Folktronic? Looks like it. He's already on disk 3 and only half-way through his spectacular discography.
Plus there ARE two songs from Folktronic : Pygmalism and Going for a Walk with a Line. And these obviously HAVE to be in the collection as they're two of his best songs from this period (if not two of his best songs. full stop.) But they're from the "extras" part of the disk, not Folktronic proper (at least that's how I read them). Perhaps it was hard to find one. Finnegan the Folk Hero of HTML is a bit twee. Psychopathis Sexualis maybe?
Oskar Tennis Champion is one of Momus's greatest albums. Certainly the extremely inventive beginning of his "modern" (2000s+ ) style. It deserves to be well represented. No arguments about Beowulf and The Laird of Inversnecky, though I'm surprised by Scottish Lips. I'd have thought Is It Because I'm A Pirate? would be the obvious third here.
He's right to skip quickly over Otto Spooky. In my opinion, Momus's least pleasurable album. Even though it has Bantom Boys and Cockle Pickers which are ambitious experiments. Life of the Fields is arguably a kind of last hurrah of of the Folktronic style and maybe appears for that reason. It's so so though.
Ocky Milk, in contrast, is like Vodka Jellies, another compendium of big, enjoyable tunes (that also manages to competently incorporate quite a lot of his weird experimentation). It's under-represented here. Though perhaps hard to do justice to it.
Of course, now he's having to rush. We're half-way through disk 3 and we're only starting on the really new stuff. Home produced albums which tend to have more songs on them than those made with expensive studio time in the 80s. The lush Joemus collaboration Widow Twankie deserves its slot here. Hypnoprism is woefully under-represented. As is Thunderclown. In comparison, two songs from Bibliotek seems generous. Though Erase, Momus's experiment with another folktronicesque genre - Hauntology - is worthwhile. Two each from Bambi, Terpsicore and Glyptothek are fair. Though I'd prefer Catholic App, Unreconstructed or Spore to The Hiker. (System of Usher is fantastic.)
And I wish he'd found room for Old Nick at the end. While Momus's last-of-the-album mawkfests (Ex-erotomane, Gibbous Moon) are often legendary, and The Vaudevillian is the uber-tearjerker of an ending, Old Nick's sly twist on the convention is equally fulfilling, and somehow sums up the Momus project better.
Anyway looks a great compilation for those who don't know or have Momus's ouvre. (I pretty much do have all these tracks, most of them legally.)
Thursday, June 30, 2016
On Corbyn
So, my official position on the insurgency against Jeremy Corbyn from his own cabinet. As, so often these days, in the form of a Quora answer to the question : Are people calling for Jeremy Corbyn to step down after Brexit delusional?
Un-fucking-believably idiotically delusional.
I am … flabbergasted … that the Labour party has decided to commit suicide today. (Sunday 27 June, 2016).
Hilary Benn and friends have basically just declared that they want Nigel Farage to be Prime Minister.
It takes stupendous incompetence to make Nigel Farage into the most successful and competent party leader in England. But right now, that’s what he is. A leader who actually leads his party. And achieves the things he sets out to do.
Welcome to the age of stupid.
So … what happened is this. We are out of Europe because Cameron did a rash thing that backfired. And a lot of traditional working-class Labour voters were sold a simplistic story by the far-right, that immigrants were the reason for all the things that were wrong in their lives and the economy. (Rather than, say, the 2008 crash, and Cameron and George Osborne’s austerity policies over the last 6 years)
So, the anti-Corbyn faction have spun that into the idea that it’s Labour’s fault that the referendum went Brexit. And, in particular, those who have beef with Corbyn, have decided to jump on the bandwagon and claim that it’s particularly Corbyn’s fault for being lukewarm on European membership; a reluctant Remain. It’s Corbyn wot lost it.
Well, guess what. While a majority of Labour voted to remain, a sizeable chunk of Labour voted to leave. Labour IS conflicted over Europe; the working class haven’t seen much of the benefit of membership. And even remainers are sceptical. In other words, Corbyn’s lukewarm attitude to Europe far more accurately reflects the opinion of Labour membership and its traditional voters than any enthusiastic Europhilia does.
Now most of Corbyn’s enemies are from the right of Labour. The Blairite or New Labour side. Those who strongly believe that to win, Labour needs to recapture the political centre and the middle-class.
Maybe. But meanwhile, Labour is STILL haemorrhaging its actual, real (as opposed to potential) support among the working class. The SNP have taken its voters away from it in Scotland. UKIP is now taking working class voters away from it in the rest of England.But according to today’s plotters, Labour must orient itself yet further towards the interest of the urban elites; be louder and more dedicated in espousing them.
Except, simultaneously, it needs to also listen to the “real concerns” that labour voters have about immigration. And, ironically, Corbyn is both accused of bringing up questions like the TTIP which are allegedly “irrelevant” to people on the doorstep (despite being one of the most fundamental changes in legislation that Europe was bringing to the UK) AND of “lack of leadership” (ie. not just pandering to the crowd and media talking points)
He’s damned when he does reflect Labour voters (ie. is lukewarm) and damned when he doesn’t (ie. tries to talk about bigger issues, defends immigration)
(As a comparison, imagine this was an uprising by pro-Brexit Labour MPs, led by Kate Huey, claiming that Corbyn had backed the wrong horse and was out of step with supporters. At least that argument would have the benefit of coherence.)
The real delusion is this :
The Labour Party is being torn apart by historical forces that are far bigger than Jeremy Corbyn and his enemies. It serves multiple constituencies whose interests (economic, political and ideological) are diverging alarmingly. It finds it harder and harder to find positions that appeal to all these constituencies and whenever it speaks up for one, it alienates the others just a little bit more. (Perhaps Labour in any real sense, as the coalition of working class economic interest and middle-class liberal cultural interests is finished. Along with the second-wave industrial economy that spawned that alliance.)
And Corbyn’s critics are right. With his fusty old beliefs and principles, perhaps he can’t reunite these different factions.
But the reason they’re delusional is that neither can anyone else.
Corbyn’s critics, who blame him personally him for this, are fantasizing about a unicorn politician, someone who can magically be on everyone’s side at the same time : pro-Europe, pro-market, pro globalization, low taxing, liked by the right-wing media, and also pro-working class, protecting them from the competition that immigrants and globalization bring, offering more services etc. etc.In other words, they want a Trump-like, post-truth politician with the ability to tell everyone what they want to hear while not getting caught out. Basically, they’re hoping for their very own Boris Johnson. Blair with added xenophobia.
But even if you passionately believe in unicorns, and think Corbyn needs to be replaced by one. You still ought to wait for the unicorn to arrive. Not just make a unicorn-shaped hole in the hope that one will turn up to fill it.
Let’s consider a couple of things :
1) The space of being right-wing of the Labour party while being nicer than the Tories, is already occupied by the Liberal Democrats. And they have long found very meagre pickings in that zone. They have to content themselves to just playing the “we’re the opposite of whoever you don’t like” game at the local level.
The only time the LibDems did well, was as a way for left-wingers to protest against Blair’s support for the Iraq War. The moment they went back to pitching themselves as “saner Tories”, they were wiped out. This is a common delusion but there is no “there, there” in the centre of British politics. If there was, the LibDems would have ruled the country for decades.
2) why did Corbyn win the leadership of the Labour Party in the first place? The utter lack of plausible alternatives. Everyone else in the campaign couldn’t articulate any position beyond “tell me who you want me to be”. And that went down like a lead balloon.
Things are no better now. If Corbyn goes, we know there are no unicorn populists in the Labour Party who are waiting to fill that vacuum. There’s no one with that magical ability to appeal to everyone. We know this because if there were such a politician in Labour today, then we’d have already heard from him (or her). They’d have already been prominent within the Remain campaign. They’d have been out there with Alan Johnson winning hearts and making headlines. Corbyn wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have stopped that (despite his enemies trying to talk up a story of “sabotage”). Any of today’s shadow cabinet resigners could have been out there making a name for themselves saying brilliant things if they had it in them to do it.
In practice, Labour was collectively lacklustre. It was collectively lacklustre because it really is between a rock and a hard place. The ONLY people who can argue that you can have the economic liberalism of the EU AND protectionist anti immigration policies are barefaced liars like Johnson and Farage. And, to their credit, Labour wasn’t shameless enough to try to promise that. Even if the cost was saying very little of consequence.
So, Labour had big problems in the referendum. But Corbyn is a symptom, not a cause, of them.
This week, David Cameron, the great Tory “success” of recent years, has been humiliated , revealed as making a spectacular error of judgement and has fallen. Meanwhile Boris Johnson is getting revealed as spectacularly dishonest. The entire tissue of lies that is the Brexit campaign is unravelling. The financial markets are in free-fall.
This is ALL the fault of right-wing incompetence.If Labour went on holiday for a month, they should be 10 points ahead when they came back.
Instead, a bunch of self-indulgent MPs, blinded by their own anger, confusion and frustration at Brexit and panic over a near election, have decided this would be an ideal week to turn in on themselves and break the Labour Party. Possibly for good.
In the run up to an early general election (if it comes within the next 12 months) the story coming out of Labour should be ALL about how allegedly “safe” Conservative hands clumsily dropped and broke the economy while UKIP were telling outrageous porkies.
Instead the message will be a confusing internal squabble about whether, in this party that almost entirely supported remain, the leadership was enthusiastic enough in its support for Europe. Despite that position being an overall vote-loser.
Genius!
Instead of recognizing the fundamental challenges that the 21st century presents to centre-left politics and parties : global capitalism, high-speed finance, mass automation threatening most traditional employment, mass movements of people due to continual unrest and wars, climate change, social media, cryptography, blockchains etc. etc. MPs in the “shadow cabinet”, the aspiring government in waiting, are trying to personalize everything as Corbyn’s fault, and fantasize that by getting rid of the hated leader, their unicorn saviour will magically appear and heal the contradictions in the party, reunite them and make everything OK with the electorate.
Now THAT is delusional.
If Labour spends the next 6 months infighting, as other lacklustre non-entities demand their turn to wilt in the spotlight of leadership, then the beneficiary will be UKIP, whose pitch to the working-class will be “we know what we stand for, we get things done (though we still haven’t managed to purge ourselves of these immigrants because of Tory prevarication)”. They’ll take an even bigger slice of working-class voters from Labour, perhaps finally winning enough seats to force the Tories into coalition.
Anyone who believes a “nationalist” party can’t take the working class away from Labour should look to Scotland. And the rise of far right parties in the rest of Europe.
Farage has already pwned the Tory party, by spooking Cameron into giving him the referendum that he can now claim credit for winning. He’s actually had Tory leavers dancing to the tune of his propaganda campaigns. Now imagine a coalition government with, say, Theresa May as notional prime-minister and Farage as deputy. It wouldn’t take long for him to grab the oxygen and become its public face (and perhaps driving force).
What stands between us and that future is a united Labour party. Letter after letter of shadow cabinet resigners stress that and say that Corbyn can’t unite Labour. But it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s they who have decided to refuse to be united under Corbyn.
When they say that he failed because he failed to stop Brexit, they aren’t speaking for the 52% of the country that voted FOR Brexit. They aren’t speaking for the membership of the Labour Party that overwhelmingly voted Corbyn. They aren’t speaking for the working class that was ambivalent about the benefits of the EU and tempted to take a punt on something different. They’re just publicly broadcasting their own cluelessness about the contradictions within the Labour Party. And their willingness to try to pin the blame on someone else.
It won’t end well. Corbyn has a mandate from Labour members and supporters. He’s always put his principle over toeing the party line, even when it made him unpopular. He has no reason to think that this upswing against him has any more principle behind it than naked fear and ambition.
So I think he’ll fight it. And we’ll see Labour collapse into an angry, bad tempered leadership contest, with no obviously strong / charismatic alternative to Corbyn coming forward.
Either Corbyn wins it leaving his detractors smouldering with resentment and denuding the front-bench of even their meagre talents. Or someone else comes through, who MPs like better but proves equally incapable of solving the fundamental contradictions that Labour faces, but does drive away the enthusiastic supporters who came on-board for and with Corbyn.
Most likely you’ll see a very ugly competition where some candidates espouse anti-immigration policies direct from UKIP, scaring away liberal London, while Europhile Blairites tell a tired Polyannaish story about the benefits of globalization that reinforces their out-of-touchness with Labour voters in post-industrial regions.
Labour was falling apart anyway, due to historical trends. But this coup is like trying to arrest that process by hitting it with a big hammer. All it will do is accelerate the fragmentation.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Three Policies for Pirates
Three policies I'd like to see a Pirate Party (or any forward looking political party) adopt with respect to providers of online services, social networks, communication feeds etc.
1) There should be an option to turn the filter-bubble off.
If you use an algorithmic filter to prioritise what is of interest to the user within a feed, you MUST also provide a version of the feed without that filter. And an easy way to switch it on or off.
2 Everyone owns their own "data-exhaust".
If you provide a service that gets its value from observing user behaviour you cannot claim exclusive ownership of that data. The user should have an inalienable right to share or license it with anyone else. (You aren't obliged to make it available to others (which might be genuinely arduous) but you can't complain if the user or another company (with the user's consent) figures out how to do it themselves.
3) Service providers must openly explain what data they are mining / inferring from their users.
Just as packaged foods must explain what ingredients go in to them. Online data-services must explain what they are inferring from your behaviour so that you know what you are revealing to them.
1) There should be an option to turn the filter-bubble off.
If you use an algorithmic filter to prioritise what is of interest to the user within a feed, you MUST also provide a version of the feed without that filter. And an easy way to switch it on or off.
2 Everyone owns their own "data-exhaust".
If you provide a service that gets its value from observing user behaviour you cannot claim exclusive ownership of that data. The user should have an inalienable right to share or license it with anyone else. (You aren't obliged to make it available to others (which might be genuinely arduous) but you can't complain if the user or another company (with the user's consent) figures out how to do it themselves.
3) Service providers must openly explain what data they are mining / inferring from their users.
Just as packaged foods must explain what ingredients go in to them. Online data-services must explain what they are inferring from your behaviour so that you know what you are revealing to them.
Friday, January 08, 2016
Taking Issue With Paul Graham’s Premises
Good take-down of Paul Graham's feeble defence of income inequality.
Deciphering Glyph :: Taking Issue With Paul Graham’s Premises
Deciphering Glyph :: Taking Issue With Paul Graham’s Premises
Friday, December 04, 2015
Defeating ISIS
These days I seem to do most of my writing / thinking / arguing etc. on Quora.
So for the record, here's what I'm saying about ISIS and the UK vote to join in airstrikes. (Question : "House of Commons in UK voted for action against ISIS/ISIL in Syria - Is this going to be another blunder like Iraq?)
It's utterly the wrong thing to do. And strategically somewhere between pointless and very counter-productive.To which Rupert Baines replied :
But it's not quite the same as the Iraq blunder. Iraq was an unforced war of choice against a non-beligerant nation for the purposes of socially re-engineering the middle-east : something we never had the ability to do and should have recognised from the start that we couldn't do.
In this case, the war has come to us. Or at least to France which is a pretty close ally. And IS explicitly say they WANT a war with us. (It's precisely because they want it that we shouldn't give it to them.) Nevertheless, IS is threatening us in a way that Iraq wasn't when we chose to involve ourselves in it. And we need some strategic response.
The basic problem in Syria is that the West wants to get rid of Assad. And two local powers - Russia and Iran - want to keep him. The West can't move fully against IS until that is resolved. We can't put boots on the ground in Syria without either a) Assad's permission, or b) explicitly going against Assad and therefore Russia and Iran.
This is why we're paralyzed. We all know that airstrikes can't actually beat ISIS ... airstrikes by themselves never beat anyone. We know that going in on the ground really would be a blunder, putting us into the quagmire where we try to hold territory and rebuild a state, under attack from all sides : the Assad government, more surreptitiously by Russia and Iran and their proxies, and by the remnant Sunnis who see themselves fighting for survival surrounded by hostile Shiites.
So, avoiding the quagmire, we have the second most amazingly idiotically bad strategy of all time ...
- We're going to bomb people from the air, with no hope of achieving any concrete victory.
- Some people we bomb will be ISIS fighters but many will be innocent civilians.
- Most of whom never wanted ISIS there in the first place; don't support ISIS, and only collaborate with it out of fear.
- We're going to teach those civilian Syrian Sunnis that we nevertheless consider that their lives are expendable in our loooooong war of attrition against ISIS.
- That's mainly about us "being seen" to do something.
- We'll act all shocked and outraged if some of the next generation of young Sunnis growing up in the area start to think of themselves as on ISIS's side and the West as their enemies. How perfidious can they be, considering we were only trying to help them?
- We will wait for a "miracle". That is, for some other local faction, who are nice and good people. That we'd be proud to associate ourselves with. And very friendly with us. And courageous enough to fight against both ISIS on the ground AND to march on and take over from Assad. And when that faction arises, won't our air-support be wonderfully useful to them?
That's it. That's the current strategy. Keep bombing people, and killing mostly civilians, until the miracle group turn up and do the dirty work for us.
Yeah, I think that sounds utterly fucked too.
So here's what we should be doing.
Phone up Assad, Russia and Iran. Tell them that our priorities have changed. That we aren't interested in deposing Assad at this time ... or any time in the near future. Tell him we'd like to co-operate against the common enemy. That we're willing to use our air-power to support his ground-troops against that enemy. In return we want a deal where he promises not to use chemical weapons (he won't need them with the all bombs we can provide him). And that he accepts some NATO troops / UN Peacekeepers on the ground in the retaken areas, as a guarantee that there isn't too much retribution against the Sunni population. Also we'll ask that he cuts a reasonably lenient deal with the other non ISIS, non Al Qaeda rebel factions that rose up against him.
Do the deal. Get the ISIS region back under Syrian government control. Then do a similar deal with the Iraqi government.
Maybe if we're really lucky we can get some kind of semi-autonomous Sunni area protected from Shiites, where we can work with local leaders. We don't want to make the mistake of abandoning Sunnis to vengeful Shiites, which is one of the processes that led to ISIS in the first place.
Does that sound like we've allied ourselves with an evil monster and sold out our other anti-Assad friends in Syria? Are we bad people when we do this?
Yes. And yes.
So here's the question. How serious are we? How badly do we want to kill ISIS? Are we (and our politicians) willing to pay the price?
And the other thing people seem to ignore: we have been bombing ISIS for 14 months in IraqAnd my further (lengthy) reply
Have we been bombing civilians there?
If so, odd that their government is ok with it
If not, why would we do so in Syria?
No, we have been bombing oil fields, military bases and combat positions
I'm not ignoring that. I'm aware we're bombing a bit of Iraq ... at the invitation of the Iraqi government. And with the hope that Iraqi ground-troops will eventually move back into the IS region and re-establish the government's control there. As far as I know, we are NOT bombing a bit of Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. We are not co-ordinating with Syrian ground-troops. We don't particularly want them to re-establish control over the region. Indeed, we have an ill-disguised hope that Assad is still going to fall to some other rebel faction.
I know people seem to think that international law and boundaries are basically ignorable. Last decade our leaders promoted the idea that our expedience trumps such niceties. So we undermined the entire system.
But THAT is one of the big problematic legacies we're struggling with now ... do we want to re-establish the rule of law? Or it a free-for-all where might-makes-right? We can't have it both ways. We can't ignore international law whenever we like, and then convincingly claim that our wider actions are aimed at, and justified by, establishing such law and stability. Even if the British conveniently blind ourselves to the hypocrisy, the rest of the world notices.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-a-borderless-world-the-days-when-we-could-fight-foreign-wars-and-be-safe-at-home-may-be-long-a6741146.html
ISIS define themselves against the system that we built and that we are ostensibly defending. If we now casually ignore our own system, then we just make ISIS's argument for them.
Everyone sort of admits that when we fight ISIS, we're "fighting an idea". And the priority when fighting an idea is to have a BETTER idea to offer in its place. But that's exactly what we don't have. Instead we're reiterating the mistake of Iraq : we break stuff, but don't know how to put it back together again. And then we're surprised when what emerges to fill the vacuum isn't to our taste. We hate all their ideas ... Islamic rules for creating a stable society through extreme religious obedience and harsh punishment; but we have no ideas that work better for them in their place.
We allegedly love the idea of autonomous nation-states. But draw and ignore boundaries for our colonial and post-colonial convenience. We allegedly love democracy, but support the Egyptian army overthrowing an elected Muslim Brotherhood. We love free-markets and competition, but Iraq was a feeding trough of well connected corporations sucking up the redevelopment budget.
I'm not saying this to make an argument that Islamic attacks on the West are justified because of our hypocrisy. Don't accuse me of that. I AM saying that the hypocrisy reveals the weakness of the ideas we're offering them. They are superficial facades which even we don't respect or believe in, deep down. But without having something better to offer, how do we "win" against the idea of the Caliphate?
And without a strategy for winning, you have nothing but tactics, designed to maintain some kind of stand-off.
When the attack comes in England, it will almost certainly be executed by British born or resident ISIS sympathizers. It's likely not to be directed from the ISIS region but be planned here too. And largely financed locally or from a very diffuse global network of funders. How exactly do tactical strikes on oil-fields in the ISIS regions prevent, or degrade ISIS's capacities to execute, such an attack?
Airstrikes attacking the military and even economy of the Islamic State are a perfectly valid tactic ... IF you are supporting a ground invasion to seize control of the territory and hand it over to a legitimate authority. That's fine.
But don't try to fool yourself, or anyone else, that airstrikes against ISIS territory are at all useful in preventing the next "terrorist atrocity" in London. There's no possible way that an airstrike in Syria is going to do that. There are no fat causal pipes that can be cut. Just diffuse memes floating across the internet and individuals circulating through the international air-transport system.
It's stupid to imagine that airstrikes in Syria will protect us. And that's what's totally terrifying, the ignorant level of political discourse. People who are meant to be responsible enough to run the country engaging in magical thinking about what military action can and can't do.
Airstrikes in Syria are ONLY useful in support of a ground-invasion. WHERE IS THE GROUND INVASION?
Friday, July 03, 2015
Giles Fraser :
So, to recap: corrupt German companies bribed corrupt Greek politicians to buy German weapons. And then a German chancellor presses for austerity on the Greek people to pay back the loans they took out (with Germans banks) at massive interest, for the weapons they bought off them in the first place. Is this an unfair characterisation? A bit. It wasn’t just Germany.
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