Has political apathy eroded our freedoms?

[mam29]

Been giving this some serious thought recently.

I know lots people feel disconnected with politics that they all same.

But i have interest in politics, not sure who i support next election.

Im well educated read papers, watch variety of news

daily politics, this week, question time.

mostly buy the independent as the media bias annoys me.

but 2 bills have been passed that I diden't agree with

no right of appeal until 2 years employment

school holidays 10 days discretion.

seems not until its passed and live do people get wound up,

its too late now

I am strongly against increasing ratio preschool, ranking 5 and 11 year olds and new childcare policy but feel bit powerless.

how did these slip through and no one notice?

makes me wonder what else they done or doing that never gets highlighted until too late.

The media only highlight what they want to often with mistakes or bias.

[Spinflight]

Elected scumbag politicians just count your votes and discount your views, apathy is a natural reaction to this.

I'd say it certainly has damaged our rights and freedoms, if you look at the ancient freedoms set out against the absolute power of Kings ( who early on were genuinely foreign or in the control of the Pope) there isn't much, if anything left..

The first clause of Magna Carta required the church to be free, now whether you agree or disagree with gay marriage it is clear that the Church was not free to make it's own decision.

Equality under the law? There isn't even a pretence at it. Our elected scumbags decide to censor the press, with the help of celebrities, purely to prevent anything embarrassing about themselves or their rabid lifestyles leaking out. If you were shot in the back of the head whilst walking down the street it would be newsworthy but do you honestly think there would be hundreds of police on the case full time for months or a year? If you work at the BBC and are a known face then your chances of Justice appear higher..

Luckily for us both the blue scumbags and the red scumbags agree that our under 25s are too feckless and need to have their entitlement to benefits removed. So because they don't vote in great numbers their birthright can be taken away whilst the scumbags vote themselves an 11% payrise? Under 25 is clearly less equal under the law of the land, and these are the very same kids praised for their record breaking exam results, year after year after year....

How does habeus Corpus translate to 42 days without being charged? In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings we are all guilty of allowing the scumbags to target and victimise a small section of the community.

Tony Benn was a lone dissenting voice.

You hear the rumblings about trial by jury being too expensive... Don't convict enough... Trial by judge soon rather than by your peers.

Evict foreign 'terror suspects' from the country even if it makes them stateless? Not even the King's of old had such powers yet we hand them over to Theresa May!... I suspect one becomes a terror suspect merely by disagreeing with whatever the westmintser bubble thinks eventually.

And all the time they snoop, allow the Americans to snoop and record everything.

Well here you go... Supposedly our constitution...

www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw1cc1929/25/9/contents

"There are currently no known outstanding effects for the Magna Carta (1297)"

[MiniTheMinx]

Wannabestepfordwife If you decide to read Capital this is really good to follow davidharvey.org/ it is an online course. It makes Marx simple (did I just say that everything up to chapter 3 is a bit hard going because of the way in which Marx constructs his argument about where value comes from. If you get past chapter two it gets easier.

And I agree with you I would like to see support for small businesses. Part of the problem is the fact that banks favour large corporates. They basically facilitate monopoly because it protects their own interests.

[farrowandbawl]

I agree and am guilty of it myself.

It's not a lot but I do watch it and read about it. I sign petitions on things I don't agree with and email my MP...and this is where it falls flat.

If my own MP can't be bothered to reply to emails or phone calls, then I don't see the point. It does, if anything, reinforce my opinion that they really, don't give a shit until it's election time and they want your vote.

[TheArticFunky]

I have always been interested in politics and depressed by political apathy however it gets to a point when you feel like banging your head against the wall. Recently I was discussing with friends that it was concerning how our employment rights were being chipped away and they looked at me blankly they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. My friends are educated people and yet they close their ears to any talk of politics even issues that concern them directly.

I'm in a dilemma I usually vote Labour apart from a period of voting Lib Dem in my early years. I don't think I can vote Labour at the next election. Ed Miliband started off so promising but I'm increasing thinking that he hasn't got a clue. What was all that rubbish about employers having to recruit apprentices if they recruit someone from outside the EEU? I think Apprenticeships are the way forward and should be championed all the way not used as a punishment! There is also strict criteria to fulfil when recruiting someone from outside Europe. This proposal sounds like something I would expect from UKIP.

In answer to the OP's question YANBU and I agree with you. However it really isn't surprising and I think it won't be long before I join the ranks of political apathy myself.

[Wannabestepfordwife]

I'll give it a go mini

claig I see your point with ukip I see their appeal and I definitely think the current three party system needs mixing up a bit.

What I would really like to see is a leader encouraging the aspirations of the average person eg making it easier to set up your own business

[MiniTheMinx]

Why, he's dead, far better to read what he had to say when he was alive.

[Wannabestepfordwife]

It's more the fact my dad used to make us go to high gate cemetery every year- Marx's grave isn't much fun when your 6 lol. Put me off ever reading his works

[MiniTheMinx]

Soviet Union was a bastardised form of socialism but it wasn't communism. The Bolsheviks made many mistakes. No working class, under-development, agrarian society rather than industrial, no class consciousness...the list cont,..

Slave labour existed in ancient times, it has existed under capitalism in the colonies & in the U.S and now it exists here in the form of state sanctioned forced labour. It has never existed under communism but it did exist under Stalin.

Marx critiqued capitalism and gave us a solid social scientific & economic theory. His work basically tells you how technological developments and class relations under any particular economic model (mode of production) eventually lead to revolutionary change. He concluded that capitalism had much to commend it esp if you compare it to what went before, (feudalism) but history doesn't stand still. You don't have to be a socialist to read Marx

[Wannabestepfordwife]

I fully admit I haven't read any or Marx's works but I can see some similarities between the Soviet Union and Britain with regards to secret courts, the levensen enquiry etc.

[MiniTheMinx]

I think someone doesn't understand what communism is.

[claig]

There has been apathy. We know that lots of them are lying about lots of things. We know they are all the same on catastophic climate change and every other con that the people don't believe in.

But that initial apathy has led to the rise of UKIP as an alternative. That will reinvigorate political debate and breath new life and hope into ordinary people which terrifies the privileged elites.

[claig]

Wannabe, things will change because there is a new party on the block - a party of the people, ordinary people, not Oxbridge and public school elites, and that party is UKIP.

The elites will smear it but they can't stop it because ordinary people have lost faith in the elites.

[Wannabestepfordwife]

I would agree with you! Someone on a workfare thread pointed out that the workfare scheme is similar to communism and I can see their point.

People aren't earning enough to live, food banks are needed, employment rights have been undermined by migrants (not their fault) but people don't dare complain about their jobs as they are easily replaced.

We have secret courts where people's children are taken from them and dementia sufferers money are going to the state against there's and their families wishes and you can go to prison for discussing the cases.

We have the levensen enquiry undermining freedom of the press. Most press agencies are now propaganda machines the BBC and guardian for labour and the mail for the Tories. And there's Rupert Murdoch who I've always compared to a James Bond baddie.

Then there's teachers and doctors with so much state bureaucracy they are hampered in trying to do their jobs.

I really fear for the state of the country especially as becoming a politician seems to be reserved for the rich and well connected no longer the average man/woman

[MiniTheMinx]

That's why we should hold back any enthusiastic support from the likes of UKIP

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

That's a good point Elizabeta. An apathetic population and an extremist government is a dangerous combination. But an extremist government egged on and supported by an enthusiastic, actively engaged population has to be much worse.

[ElizabetaLuknichnaTomanovskaya]

Cogito wrote "I don't agree with the suggestion that apathy erodes our freedoms. If anything, I think political fanaticism & extremism allows that to happen more easily"

I assumed this to mean that governments and politicians pursing fanatical and extremists policies eroded freedoms.

This would be true only if the population is apathetic.

The same as an apathetic population would allow extremist/fanatical/tyrannical ideas and policies to be carried.

I'm not certain what cogito meant because she/he seems to imply that an active engaged citizenry wouldn't prevent tyranny or extremism but it seems hard to accept than anyone would seriously think this.

[claig]

Or you have failed to understand cogito's post

[ttosca]

It follows from what you wrote.

Either you don't express yourself well, or you think people tend to only take two political paths: apathy or extremism.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"It appear that you think if people aren't apathetic they are extremists."

Maybe to you, but I think you'll find you're in a minority.

[ttosca]

Cogito-

Eyerything you say is the opposite of the truth.

First of all, you contrast 'apathy' with 'fanaticism and extremism'. That's quite revealing. it shows your undemocratic tendencies. It appear that you think if people aren't apathetic they are extremists.

Secondly, any government or coalition can steamroller through practically anything they like. The UK doesn't have a constitution. No Parliament is bound by the previous Parliament. The only thing constraining Parliament is popular opinion, precedent, and human rights laws. This government now wants to abolish human rights laws.

Finally, the coalition has no mandate for half of its policies. Quite the opposite, it is now implementing policies which it explicitly rejected in each of the parties respective manifestos: no top-down re-organisation of the NHS and no increase in tuition fees come to mind. It has no mandate for selling off the Royal Mail. It has no mandate for the myriad policies which attack the poorest and most vulnerable and have killed people in the thousands.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I don't agree with the suggestion that apathy erodes our freedoms. If anything, I think political fanaticism & extremism allows that to happen more easily. When Labour were last in power and could steamroller anything they liked through parliament with their majority, our freedoms were under severe threat. Remember ID cards, 90 days without trial, DNA database ideas? There was no public pressure for any of it and (unlike the last four years) no external crisis driving the agenda either. Life was good, money was plentiful and, rather than give the country a solid foundation, more houses or boost industry they chose to go the sinister route of keeping tabs on us all. Whether you personally like their policies or not, the Coalition has had a far more difficult environment to manage and has had to tread far more carefully seeking consensus.

[moondog]

Am academic involved in policy review once told us that a mandarin had told him (when challenged on the ineffectuality of the policy being pursued) 'It doesn't matter if what we do makes no difference. The important thing is to be seen to be doing something.'

This, combined with the pandering to a 24 hour media machine and an obsession with style over substance plays a major part in the endemic apathy about politics.

Also bureaucracy is such that any change becomes increasingly more difficult to implement.

Furthermore, Cameron, Clegg and Milliband are loathsome toads.
It must be a strange sort of person who believes they can tell everyone else what to do and how to do out, even more so when their experience of doing a proper job is virtually nil.

[niceguy2]

In my view there are several factors at play here.

Nowadays who do you vote for? Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems? They're not that far apart in reality. There are minor differences but on the fundamental issues of austerity, economics etc. there's not much to set them apart.

So it doesn't matter who you vote for. And recently it seems like the best you can vote for is the least worst choice.

In that context you can understand why people have become disconnected.

Globalisation has changed the ball game much more than most people realise. Multinationals now often have bigger GDP's than entire countries. They are effectively playing governments off against each other much like a spoilt child playing his parents off for their affection.

And much until the governments of the world unite and take some serious action then this will continue. We'll see tax avoidance on a massive scale and any attempt by a single national government will result in these huge companies 'punishing' the government.

[mam29]

Ok I could scream.

Apathy in action.

Freind delights in new free schools meals announcement on fb.

other freinds use the old tesco classic

every ilttle helps.

but its unfair as only covers infants and high earning families?

that older ones should understand that lifes not fair.

so even with parents who have kids diffrent ages.

They supporting it as a good move?

Im not oing to say to eldests lifes unfair you not worthy.

next year i either pay dd1 school lunches if dd2 gets free lunches
or dd2 and dd1 take packed lunches.

why are so many people happy with crumbs.

does it cancel out all the bad things they done?

im so confused why people lack passion and just take it.

[SinisterSal]

I think globalisation means that nation states don't hold the power now.
It's all about free movement of capital. So in that sense it's about bottom line, and there is not much a political party in any country can do about it. Imagine in this atmosphere if someone started on about Protectionism, say, they'd be shot down.

But people are getting involved in single issue or local movements.