When trying to summarise politics to my children I came up with a phrase that gets to the core of what you are articulating:
"Politics is the accumulation and application of vast amounts of wealth to bring about a particular outcome".
IMO, the left keeps getting its arse kicked, since at least from the early '80s, because it doesn't really understand this principle. The left often tries to occupy the moral high ground and put forward convincing arguments when it is really about money. It's why the unions were successful in their early history, but flounder now because they can't compete with the billions.
It's not just about who owns the media or buying politicians and algorithms . There's think tanks and vast amounts of hidden research and hard science that's being bought too.
If the 'left' wants to win anything it has to start tapping into the vast billions of corporate profits. That is to say, buy capitalism to dismantle it.
I don't think you can. You match their investment with more distributed funding from the people who have done well but can't become billionaires because the billionaires are hogging all the access to wealth and power.
I'm paying up because I always agree with your posts. Well, nearly always. Anarchist, but vote (damage limitation, or ballot paper in red ink "no worthwhile candidate). Activist and trade unionist since 18, still active at 76 (Unite Community). Will work for causes and campaigns, not discriminate over theories or petty bits and pieces or what you used to be or do, or we'll never get anywhere (as history has shown).
It remains the same here when people like Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and Cornell West are smeared, stifled and denied representation through any means possible.
I keep thinking the only solution for both the UK + US left's first problem is some sort of bi-national working + messaging group that can articulate a vision for the future we both hope for, + start to grow small "clusters" in multiple subcultures, that will carry it to the "outliers" who've given up on having agency.
I get really annoyed with KS pretending he had a landslide when his vote was 3 million lower than Corbyn's in 2017. and that he was responsible for messing up Labour's very good chances with Jeremy. A lot of people don't realise that. He is smug, triumphalist and unloved, except perhaps by a load of Zionists. And basically visionless.
nb I wondered whether your question meant "cooked" or "crooked" when I first saw it. Got it now.
You talk about the need for ways of communicating that can’t be algorithmically repressed, but the answer is a lot easier than you think. It just takes the left to adopt self-hosted or independently-owned social media platforms that are part of the Fediverse. The only thing it needs to make it work is belief and solidarity.
I mean, the Fediverse is doing just fine, and it will continue being fine long after BlueSky has shadowbanned the left and become a hive for Nazis, like Twitter has.
The only way to fight corporate interests is to boycott corporations and cut them out of the equation as much as possible. And that includes online platforms whose interests are purely to make money regardless of the cost to the world.
I use Substack because that's where a lot of the left have gone to, but I'd rather be reading personal blogs, which aren't at all difficult to set up and don't cost much. Hell, I've got my own personal blog using Ghost. If I can do it, anyone can.
You ask How Cooked Is the Left. I think many on the left don't understand solidarity because sometimes solidarity requires you to make things more difficult for yourself, to avoid the easy options and work for better options. Sure, there's solidarity at times, but where is the left uniting to boycott the corporations that profit from people's data and continually make people angry for engagement? How many of your readers have decided to delete WhatsApp from their phones?
People have been bought by corporate interests. Too many on the left will only go where corporations tell them to go. You think it was a surprise to me so many people migrated from Twitter to Bluesky? It wasn't. The exodus came with questions about which platform will be viable: Mastodon or BlueSky? Will Mastodon succeed?
The thing is, the Fediverse doesn't have to be big or popular or The Place Where Everyone Is™️. And that's the point. It exists, it's a place people can talk and discuss their interests, and it exists largely outside of corporate control. That's it.
And it doesn't even matter if these words go ignored.
Got all that Corbyn was derided as being unelectable, in both elections where he was Labour leader they got more votes each time than Starmer's supposed landslide, which only happened because the Tory vote collapsed.
We need a real leader, like Corbyn, with ethics and integrity and honesty and a conscience. Someone who doesn’t take bribes and listens to the people who voted for them. Someone who wants and will work for the best for the country not someone in politics just to line their own pockets.
But mostly we need to be rid of lying, self serving politicians who don’t care about anyone but themselves who go back on everything they promised in their manifesto.
Starmer’s version of Labour is NOT my Labour! I’m deeply ashamed that Labour has become Tories MK2.
No article you've ever written has captured my opinion, and my despair, as precisely as this one. As always you are a beacon of analysis in a dark fog of misinformation.
Rumble, while it was at first seemingly a ‘majority rightwing’ space, is now increasingly attracting more and more Left/Independent voices whom have been strangled by the other platforms by algorithmic and so-called “fact-check”/Terms of Service “breaches”. Some are even dividing their time “on air” between, say, Utube and Rumble - switching to the latter at some point in their live-and/or-pre-recorded shows as and when they require an actual, for real, ‘Free Speech’ space for certain topics liable to get their channels crushed or even banned; such as topics which include & discuss Israel, genocide, Hunter Biden’s laptop, etc. Rumble seems, so far, to be a “Free-Speech alternative to Utube” & rapidly growing in popularity. Just a thought.
The big problem for the traditional, economic left is the association with mass, uncontrolled immigration, DEI/Woke and lifelong welfare.
This has nothing to do with media. Everyone has met a Labour voting student or activist retired social worker, and can hear the arguments they come out with.
When trying to summarise politics to my children I came up with a phrase that gets to the core of what you are articulating:
"Politics is the accumulation and application of vast amounts of wealth to bring about a particular outcome".
IMO, the left keeps getting its arse kicked, since at least from the early '80s, because it doesn't really understand this principle. The left often tries to occupy the moral high ground and put forward convincing arguments when it is really about money. It's why the unions were successful in their early history, but flounder now because they can't compete with the billions.
It's not just about who owns the media or buying politicians and algorithms . There's think tanks and vast amounts of hidden research and hard science that's being bought too.
If the 'left' wants to win anything it has to start tapping into the vast billions of corporate profits. That is to say, buy capitalism to dismantle it.
So how to get billionaires on side with fairer politics? We have Soros (which is why the Right hates him, of course).
I don't think you can. You match their investment with more distributed funding from the people who have done well but can't become billionaires because the billionaires are hogging all the access to wealth and power.
Out of interest, when would you say the last 'proper' Left party were in power in Brittan?
I'm paying up because I always agree with your posts. Well, nearly always. Anarchist, but vote (damage limitation, or ballot paper in red ink "no worthwhile candidate). Activist and trade unionist since 18, still active at 76 (Unite Community). Will work for causes and campaigns, not discriminate over theories or petty bits and pieces or what you used to be or do, or we'll never get anywhere (as history has shown).
It remains the same here when people like Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and Cornell West are smeared, stifled and denied representation through any means possible.
I keep thinking the only solution for both the UK + US left's first problem is some sort of bi-national working + messaging group that can articulate a vision for the future we both hope for, + start to grow small "clusters" in multiple subcultures, that will carry it to the "outliers" who've given up on having agency.
I get really annoyed with KS pretending he had a landslide when his vote was 3 million lower than Corbyn's in 2017. and that he was responsible for messing up Labour's very good chances with Jeremy. A lot of people don't realise that. He is smug, triumphalist and unloved, except perhaps by a load of Zionists. And basically visionless.
nb I wondered whether your question meant "cooked" or "crooked" when I first saw it. Got it now.
Excellent and well researched piece. Many thanks.
You talk about the need for ways of communicating that can’t be algorithmically repressed, but the answer is a lot easier than you think. It just takes the left to adopt self-hosted or independently-owned social media platforms that are part of the Fediverse. The only thing it needs to make it work is belief and solidarity.
I mean, the Fediverse is doing just fine, and it will continue being fine long after BlueSky has shadowbanned the left and become a hive for Nazis, like Twitter has.
The only way to fight corporate interests is to boycott corporations and cut them out of the equation as much as possible. And that includes online platforms whose interests are purely to make money regardless of the cost to the world.
I use Substack because that's where a lot of the left have gone to, but I'd rather be reading personal blogs, which aren't at all difficult to set up and don't cost much. Hell, I've got my own personal blog using Ghost. If I can do it, anyone can.
You ask How Cooked Is the Left. I think many on the left don't understand solidarity because sometimes solidarity requires you to make things more difficult for yourself, to avoid the easy options and work for better options. Sure, there's solidarity at times, but where is the left uniting to boycott the corporations that profit from people's data and continually make people angry for engagement? How many of your readers have decided to delete WhatsApp from their phones?
People have been bought by corporate interests. Too many on the left will only go where corporations tell them to go. You think it was a surprise to me so many people migrated from Twitter to Bluesky? It wasn't. The exodus came with questions about which platform will be viable: Mastodon or BlueSky? Will Mastodon succeed?
The thing is, the Fediverse doesn't have to be big or popular or The Place Where Everyone Is™️. And that's the point. It exists, it's a place people can talk and discuss their interests, and it exists largely outside of corporate control. That's it.
And it doesn't even matter if these words go ignored.
Got all that Corbyn was derided as being unelectable, in both elections where he was Labour leader they got more votes each time than Starmer's supposed landslide, which only happened because the Tory vote collapsed.
Have any of the meetings towards forming a new left party in the UK borne any fruit yet?
We need a real leader, like Corbyn, with ethics and integrity and honesty and a conscience. Someone who doesn’t take bribes and listens to the people who voted for them. Someone who wants and will work for the best for the country not someone in politics just to line their own pockets.
But mostly we need to be rid of lying, self serving politicians who don’t care about anyone but themselves who go back on everything they promised in their manifesto.
Starmer’s version of Labour is NOT my Labour! I’m deeply ashamed that Labour has become Tories MK2.
No article you've ever written has captured my opinion, and my despair, as precisely as this one. As always you are a beacon of analysis in a dark fog of misinformation.
Rumble, while it was at first seemingly a ‘majority rightwing’ space, is now increasingly attracting more and more Left/Independent voices whom have been strangled by the other platforms by algorithmic and so-called “fact-check”/Terms of Service “breaches”. Some are even dividing their time “on air” between, say, Utube and Rumble - switching to the latter at some point in their live-and/or-pre-recorded shows as and when they require an actual, for real, ‘Free Speech’ space for certain topics liable to get their channels crushed or even banned; such as topics which include & discuss Israel, genocide, Hunter Biden’s laptop, etc. Rumble seems, so far, to be a “Free-Speech alternative to Utube” & rapidly growing in popularity. Just a thought.
The big problem for the traditional, economic left is the association with mass, uncontrolled immigration, DEI/Woke and lifelong welfare.
This has nothing to do with media. Everyone has met a Labour voting student or activist retired social worker, and can hear the arguments they come out with.