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The 2019 General Election

killer b said:
I've read some chat recently about how Generation X is much less represented in radical political campaigns than the generations either side: I think part of that is due to childcare and suchlike, but there's also got to be another aspect too - that Gen X came up through the eras of blair and TINA technocratic governance and there was no fight for them to join.
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or that it's just tosh, i can think of lots of people born from say 1963-1977 who are and have been politically active for many years.

no fight during the blair years? i think i missed that email.
 
There was plenty of stuff during Gen X's as was for the boomers (one of many reasons why this ok boomer nonsense is illiterate) and probably for the youngsters now.

But "activism" is a young/retired person's game regardless of generation.
 
Pickman's model said:
no fight during the blair years? i think i missed that email.
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There was one significant piece of mass political mobilisation, which ended in defeat. Sure there was plenty of actions and activity going on, but all in movements numbering at best in their hundreds. Union membership and mass political participation went through the floor.
 
killer b said:
There was one significant piece of mass political mobilisation, which ended in defeat. Sure there was plenty of actions and activity going on, but all in movements numbering at best in their hundreds. Union membership and mass political participation went through the floor.
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Hundreds?

No.

Much, much bigger than that.

Which "specific" are you talking about btw?

I'm thinking dockers, RTS, Iraq, anti-cap, ar, afa, tail end of eco stuff etc etc. Just in the Blair years.
 
killer b said:
There was one significant piece of mass political mobilisation, which ended in defeat. Sure there was plenty of actions and activity going on, but all in movements numbering at best in their hundreds. Union membership and mass political participation went through the floor.
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my experience of the blair years seems to vary greatly from yours, with things like the liverpool dockers attracting widespread support, the anti-globalisation movement of c.1998-c.2005, the latter reclaim the streets events, and of course the anti-war movement. i don't know why you seem to identify union membership with radical political campaigning.
 
Pickman's model said:
tbh it's a position i have some sympathy with, because for a change the alternatives are make things a bit worse (corbyn) or make them very much worse (johnson).
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Aye, me too. I wouldn't dream of slagging off some anarchist for voting Labour and totally get why they would do this. Those former anarchists who have completely thrown in their lot with Project Corbyn and have joined or do legwork for the party come election time, then I'm a bit less forgiving.
 
Serge Forward said:
Aye, me too. I wouldn't dream of slagging off some anarchist for voting Labour and totally get why they would do this. Those former anarchists who have completely thrown in their lot with Project Corbyn and have joined or do legwork for the party come election time, then I'm a bit less forgiving.
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Is it ok if I'm not a former anarchist?
 
chilango said:
Hundreds?

No.

Much, much bigger than that.

Which "specific" are you talking about btw?

I'm thinking dockers, RTS, Iraq, anti-cap, ar, afa, tail end of eco stuff etc etc. Just in the Blair years.
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the specific I was thinking of was the anti-war movement. the other stuff happened sure, but none of it seemed to me to be mass participatory in the same way that the miners strikes or the anti-poll tax stuff and the like were.
 
killer b said:
the specific I was thinking of was the anti-war movement. the other stuff happened sure, but none of it seemed to me to be mass participatory in the same way that the miners strikes or the anti-poll tax stuff and the like were.
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No. But the Miners' Strike and the Poll Tax are outliers in terms of mass participation in the last 50 years or so.

Nothing since (post Gen X) has come close to that either.
 
Pickman's model said:
my experience of the blair years seems to vary greatly from yours, with things like the liverpool dockers attracting widespread support, the anti-globalisation movement of c.1998-c.2005, the latter reclaim the streets events, and of course the anti-war movement. i don't know why you seem to identify union membership with radical political campaigning.
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I'm not getting into the Gen X stuff but then I'm from the generation after - so my initial post was more about that. My first, teenaged political activity came with the anti-War protests- which we resoundingly lost despite mass support. After that we had odd bits like the student protests or Occupy. Neither of which felt like fights that could be won and both of which were a lot more marginal than the anti-War stuff. The defining factor throughout though, ime, has been the 'Left' being mostly ignored except by minor and often (not always) shitty little groups like the SWP.
 
YouSir said:
I'm not getting into the Gen X stuff but then I'm from the generation after - so my initial post was more about that. My first, teenaged political activity came with the anti-War protests- which we resoundingly lost despite mass support. After that we had odd bits like the student protests or Occupy. Neither of which felt like fights that could be won and both of which were a lot more marginal than the anti-War stuff. The defining factor throughout though, ime, has been the 'Left' being mostly ignored except by minor and often (not always) shitty little groups like the SWP.
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the argument resoundingly won, the war however went ahead. and from that stems so many of our current ills.
 
Just checked out who's standing in my constituency. Disappointed to report there are no independents standing. I do love a random nutty independent standing on some hyper-local issue.

Next constituency along there are a couple of independents. One seems over exercised about building new houses, as in she doesn't want new house built. I can't find any info on the other guy which is promising from the lulz perspective.

We do quite randomly have a Brexit Party candidate. In theory this is a 2 way shootout between the tories and lib dems so theoretically this could be the sort of situation where BP can damage the tories. That being said I'll be surprised if the BP guy gets his deposit back.
 
All generational stuff is bollocks. Stuff about this generation having/not having ladder pulled up is bollocks. Applying class analysis on a generational basis is bollocks. You cannot extrapolate how some from a generation did against others. There are plenty of poor pensioners, poor boomers, poor generation x's, people who didn't benefit, there are plenty of millennials and generation z's who are doing just fine even if they are pissing all their money away on avacado on toast festivals and nitrous oxide or whatever shite people come out with.
 
I don’t know that I agree it’s “all bollocks”. People are heavily affected by the prevailing social forces, and those have some similarity of action across cohorts born into the same era. Clearly, any kind of oversimplification would be inappropriate— you still need to understand those forces in the other contexts they exist within for different groups of people. And any generalisations anyway will not be entirely true for anybody and will be completely false for some others, which limits the use of the generalisation. But that’s not the same thing as it being “all bollocks”
 
I don't think generational stuff effects the nature of the problems people face, as was said - people of all ages suffer all sorts of shit. Definitely effects the way people approach them though. Communities change, culture changes - people pretending that it's all always the same as in their day is pointless.

And on a side note - my generation didn't even get a name until people started getting pissy about the generation after and decided to lump us all in as millenials.
 
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