Manifesto

[batbat]

One thing that annoys me about being politically conscious or aware in British (and probably Western) society is that there are basically only two 'packages', sort of like different set menus in a Chinese restaurant, with everybody subscribing to one or the other. So, either you read the Guardian, like contemporary art, are pro-choice, pro-

Comments

[alsoname]

I hate the nuts who are on "my" side. Not that I fully align myself with a certain side, but I'm sure people who knew a few superficial things about my politics would lump me in with all that. For instance, they find out I'm vegan, which is perceived as nutty enough in its own right, but then I get lumped in with the alternative-health people, and it is assumed that I also believe in auras and homeopathy and vibrational healing (whatever that is) and magnetic vortices and whatever else

[batbat]

Abortion is one of those things. I don't think that British people in general care about it that much one way or the other, but the Left in this country have made it a bit of a poster issue - as they have with anti-Zionism. A big part of that is that being a British Lefty is all about being anti-American, particularly anti-Middle-American, so anything that Middle America doesn't like is automatically to be triumphed. Abortion is at the forefront of that. (Left wing politics in the UK really is a horror show. You'll hear people making statements in support of Islamic fundamentalists and brutal third-world dictatorships purely because such things happen to cheese off the US. There are still British Marxists - and I'm talking about figures of the establishment, not just the lunatic fringe - who will claim that Stalin had mostly the right idea.)

[rdg]

read ft, generally green, pro-choice, worry about gov't and taxes, anti-israel, anti-palestine, have never said 'not in my day', and think contemp art is rubbish

i think the media would like to distill politics into arguments between two simplistic, fictional sides because then they can treat it like sport - as sport gets better ratings than policy.

[batbat]

I don't think it's just the media. I've had the unfortunate experience of becoming involved in student politics in the UK...where if anything the two simplistic fictional sides are even more indelibly set in stone than in the real world.

[bram]

I agree that the traditional left-right spectrum:

1. Doesn't capture the variety of opinions
   
2. Alters debate in a way that creates "us vs them" at the outset, diminishing the value of debate
   

Though I'm mostly traditionally left, and have more and more identified myself as such to the extent that my identity has grown with the idea that I'm "politically left", there have been issues I've gone back and forth over or see as complex ( abortion entry). Also, being Jewish I have a different perspective on Israel and the Palestinians than non-Jews on the left. It's been very strange to find myself in agreement with pundits on the issue of Israel--pundits like George Will--who seemed to me to be completely uncompelling on any other issue. Yet even there I find myself gravitating more to "my side's [the left's]" views

[the23]

agreed on the "pro-life" term, but you also used "pro-choice" which is equally orwellian.

i sympathise with the wider frustration too. the "left" and "right" labels which are largely meaningless (particularly since the advent of "new labour" in this country) are used to polarise debate. socialists think of libertarians as "right wing" and tories think of libertarians as "left wing".

to cheer myself up i imagine the frustration of belonging to one of these two groups fairly consistently and still not seeing most of it eancted when your lot are in power. i'm generally content in the knowledge that none of this farce has been done in my name since i always seem to end up voting for marginalised losers.

[the23]

not seeing most of it eancted when your

not seeing most of one's agenda enacted when one's....