poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2012-03-05 10:53 am

Politics

The reason I no longer write about politics is I've stopped thinking of politicians as grown-ups. That Mr Cameron, for instance: I just can't take him seriously.

[identity profile] rosamicula.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 12:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I so know what you mean. It's even worse, I think, if you mainly get the news off the radio. They all seem to have the self-importance of sixth formers at a school debate. Cameron and Millibland have never had proper jobs; not even the kind of lucrative proper jobs the wealthy and well-connected usually have. They have only ever worked as political researchers etc, only ever operated in the political village. They sound so callow because, effectively, they never have left school.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 01:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly.

It used to be the case that a certain proportion of the best minds of every generation would go into politics. These days the best minds all go somewhere else. It's hard to imagine the likes of Cameron, Clegg and Miliband rising to the top in any other profession.

[identity profile] veronica-milvus.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Yaye! They all go into banking!

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
A lot of them, yes...

And media and advertising and stuff like that- professions that offer them real power and influence.

[identity profile] calizen.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 02:38 pm (UTC)(link)
You should see who masquerades as politicians over here.

[identity profile] mommybird.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
If by "over here" you mean, "in the U.S.A.", I was just thinking the same thing.

[identity profile] calizen.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, that's what I meant. This side of the pond. A regular circus freak show.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, I've been following the Republican primaries ...

[identity profile] michaleen.livejournal.com 2012-03-06 11:19 am (UTC)(link)
It's a clown-car fail parade, isn't it? The party of Lincoln is now the party of Santorum and Paul.

That pink man-child in No 10 used to annoy me no end. Then I heard him state, in some official capacity or another, that what was hurting Britain's economy was not the sadistic austerity measures he loves so, but the fact that the US had failed to implement austerity as well. Apparently, Mammon will not unleash the Confidence Fairy until the poor and middle class are suffering everywhere and not just in formerly enlightened Yurp.

What a ridiculous excuse of a man. Whether he is so stupid that he actually believes his bullshit or is just morally depraved, it hardly matters.

On the plus side, I don't feel nearly so bad about Bush and Cheney, now. At least they seized power through a soft-coup. You poor dears elected Cameron and his toady fair and square.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-06 11:36 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, but we didn't really elect him, did we? The only way he could form a government that was likely to work was by going into coalition.

[identity profile] michaleen.livejournal.com 2012-03-07 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
In the end, voting Lib Dem was a vote for the Tories. I think this was even clear at the time, so much so that I honestly don't know what possessed your fellow countrymen to do it. The British economy now trails Brazil and recovery is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

All my life, whether acknowledged or not, I suspected that Americans were somehow inferior to Europeans, less informed, certainly less sophisticated, maybe even less intelligent. What's happening right now, in Britain and on the Continent, has forever disabused me of any such sense of inferiority.

[identity profile] pondhopper.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't even bring myself to think about politics any more, much less discuss it. And we have almost 4 more years of this truly destructive newly-elected right wing government here in Spain. I think people are finally realizing what they've voted for and it's an ugly picture they're getting. There aren't many redeeming politicians on either the right or the left anywhere these days, though.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
We have two more years of our coalition. I'd love to see the back of it, but I don't really believe the alternative would be any better.

[identity profile] veronica-milvus.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
It's all yes you did no we didn't it was you lot no it wasn't. Playground stuff.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-05 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly.

[identity profile] davesmusictank.livejournal.com 2012-03-06 12:38 am (UTC)(link)
They are just silly children who have yet to know about the real world.
I just find it all so depressing.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2012-03-06 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Yes.