existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Oh, don't you? Bugger that, then: I'm voting BNP.You don't have to be a "Welsh nationalist" to vote Plaid.
George Monbiot on "Wales' unreported revolution"
- Thread starter lewislewis
- Start date
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Could I suggest that one really crap way would be by seeing which way people vote?
editor
hiraethified
Far more recently, surely?
http://www.urban75.org/blog/soccer-...-russian-mob-takes-on-a-swarm-of-a-welsh-mob/
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
Yes, and if IWJ knocks on my door I will be telling him that not all islanders put short-term employment above health and the environment.
Gravediggers
New Member
Originally Posted by Gravediggers View Post
Surely a vote for Plaid is confirmation that the voter supports welsh nationalism? I would be interested in how you identify welsh nationalism?
Generally speaking you are spot on Ernest. The main political parties all support British nationalism, which they refer to as 'the British interest' which is never in the working class interest, like declaring war, etc.
However, there is one candidate standing in Vauxhaull who stands on the platform of internationalism (World Socialism). And if I were living in London he would get my vote. Come polling day I shall be spoiling my ballot by voting Socialist.
I can think for myself and need no leaders to tell me what to do and I have no time for vanguardism, so I'm not a Trot.
Surely a vote for Plaid is confirmation that the voter supports welsh nationalism? I would be interested in how you identify welsh nationalism?
Generally speaking you are spot on Ernest. The main political parties all support British nationalism, which they refer to as 'the British interest' which is never in the working class interest, like declaring war, etc.
However, there is one candidate standing in Vauxhaull who stands on the platform of internationalism (World Socialism). And if I were living in London he would get my vote. Come polling day I shall be spoiling my ballot by voting Socialist.
I can think for myself and need no leaders to tell me what to do and I have no time for vanguardism, so I'm not a Trot.
Gravediggers
New Member
I must be thick or still asleep, so could you explain further by what you mean?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Well, to start with, it's quite unlikely that any political party - or individual candidate - will represent anyone's personal philosophy exactly. So it's always going to be a bit of a "best fit", picking the candidate who appears to most closely align with your interests. Then you've got situations where people vote for particular MPs regardless of their party affilliation - perhaps because they feel particuarly well-represented by the individual, regardless of his politics - and then you have strategic voters, who might be voting a certain way because it's the "least worst" of all the options, or because they believe that by voting a certain way, they'll head off a greater catastrophe.
Which makes judging someone's particular political outlook by the way they vote a very unreliable process - like zooming a photo of their face down to a 32x32 jpeg, zooming it back up again and expecting them still to be recognisable.
editor
hiraethified
Exactly. There's a whole load of reasons why someone may decide to vote Plaid, but dismissing all of them as "Welsh nationaists" is woefully simplistic. There's quite a few English folks living in Wales expected to vote Plaid for starters, and to others it's more about voting for the kind of radical, local, left politics that chimes with their beliefs. To them, the fact that Wales is a country may almost be incidental.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
I hadn't. Sorry for missing your original ironic point.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Well, one of the prerogatives of minority parties is that they're able to make idealistic, blue sky proposals, safe in the knowledge that they'll never have to implement them. But it doesn't mean that none of the component parts are usable, and if I like the Plaid stance on a particular issue, that might incline me more towards them.
By your logic, there isn't a political party that I can vote for, because they're all - to varying degrees - clearly making grandiose promises that I don't imagine any of them have any hope of keeping!
Plaid is in coalition government in Wales though and has had to make difficult choices, it hasn't all been plain sailing it's been a test. At the Westminster level I can see your point, but Plaid won concessions for workers in the previous hung Parliament so it isn't inconceivable we could win some kind of advantage this time around.
Although, there is now a new issue in Wales what with Plaid's support in the polls plummeting after them being excluded from the leaders' debates. In the space of three weeks Plaid has lost 5 percentage points and the Lib Dems have gone up 17 points. Plaid are looking at taking legal action through Ofcom against the broadcasters. I don't see what would happen if they 'won' the case though?
I read that Monbiot article, very interesting.
If I don't do a 'none of the above' spoil here in Swansea East (still my most likely option
), then Plaid would be a possible, palatable option. Need to find out more about the candidate and platform though. They're not campaigning very hard in this seat.
If I don't do a 'none of the above' spoil here in Swansea East (still my most likely option
), then Plaid would be a possible, palatable option. Need to find out more about the candidate and platform though. They're not campaigning very hard in this seat.lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
In what sense, butchers?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Indeed - as good as Clegg has been spun out to be, Llwyd would probably have done much better since he (and Plaid) have been more right on the issues than the Libs are, he is a much better (in Parliament at least) speaker than Clegg is, and of course Plaid does not have the baggage of expense cheats / dodgy donations (Michael Brown is a stick that the Lib Dems should be beaten to death with) that Clegg has to carry about with him.
At the very least they, and the SNP, should have had one debate.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I suspect that quite a lot of that 17 point Lib Dem lead will turn out to be evanescent, and it may well be that the dip for Plaid turns out to be similarly transient. There is to be a Welsh debate, isn't there? I'd imagine that will help things along, too.
Gravediggers
New Member
With the majority of candidates supporters of capitalism all of the various choices mentioned above mean either way its a vote for nationalism. Be it British/Welsh/Scot/Irish nationalism it is still divisive and blinkered in outlook.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Fair points, though I wonder if we could stick Adam Price on, we'd probably win the poll in Wales!
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Yeah there are 3 Welsh debates, Sky, BBC, and ITV. Ieuan Wyn Jones the Plaid leader "won" the sky debate getting 55% of the viewers vote, Peter Hain got 23%, Kirsty Williams (Lib Dem) got something like 19% and the Tory woman (who didn't know Rhodri Morgan was no longer First Minister) bombed. The BBC Wales one was tonight and I heard Ieuan didn't do that well.
In any case, these debates are simply not as watched as the UK debates, and are screened at inconvenient times.
Edit- just got the stats for tonight's debate, I hate the whole circus of it to be honest but Ieuan Wyn Jones Plaid's leader again "won" the viewers vote (yuck) on 78%, Hain on 10%, Kirsty on 8%, Tory woman on 4% (she represents a constituency in England FFS! And they've actually got Welsh MPs!!). Considering Jones is supposed to be the mainstream, centre-left face of Plaid rather than the radical side, it's good going for him to get anti-consensus points across. Again though, it means piss all, the viewing figures are likely to be in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands.
Ultimately, being excluded from the UK debates has probably cost Plaid the election in Wales, and seeing as under England & Wales electoral law Plaid qualifies as a 'major party' that isn't really acceptable. If they don't take it up with Ofcom i'd be very surprised.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I think you've managed to completely miss my point.
No matter - I suspect, from your point of view, that the idea of someone independently holding a set of views that isn't lifted entirely from one party's manifesto is perhaps a tricky one to grasp.
But as a non-Welsh-speaking non-Welsh-national expat Sais who is here by an accident of fate more than anything else, and as someone who has never voted purely on the grounds of ideology, be assured that if I should vote Plaid, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility, it has absolutely nothing to do with Welsh nationalism.
Yet, according to your theory - and I would venture to suggest that quite a lot of what your saying is very much about theory and rather less about practicality - that would make me in some way a supporter of Welsh nationalism? I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of Welsh nationalism, but I hardly think I am qualified to be any more than the most patronising of "gone native" immigrant nationalists it is possible to be, if I were. Which I'm not, just to make this quite clear. Even if I vote Plaid, which I might.
I note, though, from your remark "its a vote for nationalism" that you appear to be stepping back from your original assertion that anyone who votes for a nationalist party must therefore be a nationalist. This is progress, and good to see.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
A socialist in Catalunya could vote for the ERC, without necessarily having a settled opinion on Catalan statehood or Catalan independence, but because the ERC's policies were closest to her views.
Gravediggers
New Member
According to this irrational view the voter logically is only a partial welsh nationalist for they have only voted for part of the Plaid manifesto. Sorry it but this justification don't wash for once you have cast your vote it is taken as acceptance that you support the manifesto whatever its drawbacks.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
the majority of catalan socialists vote for the PSOE and the IU.
Gravediggers
New Member
I have no knowledge who the ERC are but I take it they are the fashionable nationalists in Catalunya. This being the case a socialist would not touch them with a barge pole on a matter of principle. Its very doubtful if their policies are any where near the principles of socialism: The establishment of a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole of the community.
These principles take a global outlook on wealth, whereas nationalism focuses on looking after your own and is dismissive of the rest of the worlds problems. The myth of nationalism is that its possible to alleviate the problems of capitalism by supporting the local capitalists. Hogwash.
Gravediggers
New Member
It depends on how you define socialist (see my previous post). The application of 'socialist' has unfortunately come to mean all manner of reformist nonsense.
editor
hiraethified
That's disingenuous rubbish of the highest order.
Trying to find local solutions to local problems, fighting for local workers rights and relying less on faraway governments does not automatically equate to not giving a fuck about the rest of the world.
Read, and learn:
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
No, that's just you trying to shoehorn my point into your compartmentalised argument.
Still, I'm clearly wasting as much of my time in responding to your posts as I am in reading them in the first place, so perhaps I'll go for the double win and do neither. I certainly haven't seen anything beyond platitudinous theorising there, so my hunch is that I won't miss much.
Gravediggers
New Member
Its you who put yourself into the compartment/corner by suggesting such a pithy argument that a vote for Plaid is not necessarily a vote for welsh nationalism. In common parlance its called having you cake and eating it!
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
I've a Catalan friend who votes ERC. Her grandparents were actual 1930s anarchists, and I think she leans the same way herself - and if she votes ERC, they must be doing something right.
Gravediggers
New Member
Quote:
The Plaid Cymru manifesto also promises to honour the commitment to delivering 0.7% of GDP as international aid in addition to continuing the campaign for the cancellation of developing countries’ unaffordable debts. This would be financed in part by tightening the rules to stop the super-rich from using tax loopholes to avoid paying tax in the UK and taxing foreign exchange transactions.
Describing the climate crisis as “one of the most pressing political challenges we face” Plaid Cymru promises, to press the UK to follow the Welsh Assembly’s example of aiming to reduce emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. On the global level they would increase resources for the UN Adaptation Fund to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and call for developing countries to have an equal voice in decision making on climate action.
The Party of Wales would insist on essential governance reform of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure that they take into account human rights, the environment and workers’ rights.
Plaid Cymru describes likely reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as one of the “difficult challenges ahead” and promises to work through the Welsh Assembly to assist agriculture to become more market driven and profitable.
Plaid would seek to establish a Wales Peace Institute to help the country play its part in promoting peace and justice throughout the world. In line with this, they call for action to curtail the international arms trade including a new treaty and a binding code of conduct restricting arms exports, as well as a complete ban on land mines and cluster bombs.
http://www.voteglobal.org.uk/news/sn...ch-manifestos/
You've been fooled again! For instance, international aid in reality is not aid but a loan linked to exporting British business. A clever move to fool the voter and promote further debt in the undeveloped countries. Plaid are disingenuous in projecting the message that welsh nationalism is good for the global working class when in actual fact it only benefits the local capitalists. I could easily tear the rest of the manifesto apart but I'll leave that to you.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
'Fashionable nationalists' they gave their lives against Franco FFS for the Republic.
They are socialists who want a Catalan state.
They are to the left of the PSOE.
editor
hiraethified
You're some kind of middle class dreamer living in a fantasy world where all the "workers" raise their fists in solidarity with your singular beliefs, aren't you?
Meanwhile, in the real world, Welsh people will continue to wave flags in celebration of their country and not as a "fuck you" to the rest of the world, Plaid will continue to pick up votes from people who would be hard pressed to describe themselves as hardcore Welsh Nationalists, and you'll continue to post up daft shite here.
And maybe - one day - you'll learn how to use the 'quote' function here properly too. Well, I can dream.
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