I think there is a difference. The right pretty much drives the tone of the debate, which is the problem imo, and using guises for their rigged market, plutocratic economics such as 'free market' is completely misleading. It's all well and good Milton Friedman et al waxing lyrical about free market economics, but when these pricks legislating pretend they subscribe to the ideology and that we operate in such a system, it's to all our disadvantage to accept what they say as true, which so many people do.

Talking about 'social justice', I agree, is another nebulous term, but it's not the same veil behind which certain individuals operate to the detriment of the rest, and when it is, it's for right wing ideological reasons. Hmm I feel I'm getting into a quagmire here... But we have the evidence of reality in front of us to kind of get to grips with the meaning. Of course it's completely subjective, but I doubt most people agree that inequality - the root of the issue - is justifiable on the kind of scale we are experiencing. From that point you can go in many directions as to what constitutes 'social justice', but it stems from inequality and I think any sane person can see that.

They also do the same with other 'lefty' terms. Check the definition of 'socialism' you'll get across America. It's nothing to do with what Marx advocated. How convenient it was for the West that Trotsky and Stalin called themselves 'socialists'.

So, I do agree that jargon is used on all fronts, but it's the purpose of its use that concerns me.

F knows.. I feel I'm losing my point here. Perhaps the difference is that we do have huge inequality, so fighting for 'social justice' is easy to place under that, while we don't have a 'free market', yet it is that which the dominating force uses to mask its actual function.

Are you lost? I am.

Just read how the Shadow Chancellor is going to back Osbornes deficit law. Which is flip from the election but whatever.

The bigger deal is how I realised just how much I'm gonna facepalm over the next few years as he talked about closing the deficit going after tax evaders and avoiders.

At what point did people become so stupid that became a go to talking point? Tax avoidance is fully legal and by definition schemes are green lit by hmrc before they can be used. Tax evasion is already illegal and is stopped as much as possible.

The options are they are going to have to hire more accountants, either existing tax experts (ie pay a lot) or hire new ones and train them for nearly three years. This could make a dent in evaders but it's hard to see where the point is where you are spending more than you are saving.

Alternately to go for both (mostly just avoidance but there is spillover) they are going to overhaul and hugely simplify the tax code which is also super expensive and probably also would take three years to create through a series of hearings, committees, votes and expert teams of accountants writing the new code.

How the hell are people buying this pantomime. I get as an accounting student I know way more than most, but the average person should still understand enough to see through the charade. This literally can't close the deficit, it may not even close the deficit and if it did we are talking a multiple year process to get there.

I know that strictly speaking it's not his area of expertise, but is there a better discourse analyst commentating today?

You actually visit websites called Left Wing UK?

Edit: here it is. https://www.facebook.com/Left-Wing-U...4635/timeline/

My personal favorite:

nope. saw the chomsky quote on my fb. i often follow pages like this but inevitably unfollow them when some spastic pisses me off. i try not to talk politics any more except in here. far too many chromosomes out there. it's not good for yer health.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articl...in-east-london

Class War vs hipster cereal fetishists in London's East End

Great to see no Trident debate at the Labour conference. The BBC license fee is clearly far more important for the anti nuke peace loving Steptoe prick.

if ever a store deserved it.....

I'm inclined to agree.

http://www.channel4.com/news/cereal-...can-it-survive

Owner: "This isn't one of the poorest areas, is it?"

This is just ridiculous - the main opposition party refusing even to debate a major issue like the nuclear deterrent. Unbelievable.

I almost jumped on his bandwagon, but after hearing him tell straight up ****in lies about the SNP "privatising Scotrail and Calmac", then this, I'm stabbing the tires. **** him.

****in store. its a ****in shop.

lol, did he say that? Isn't Calmac still state-owned?

It's being put out to tender.

Very happy to blame this sort of thing on mericans. Lets call it a store.

It shouldn't be attacked obviously but I would dearly love to see it fail impressively.

What point do you think you are making?

Aye man on sunday politics. It is indeed state owned. The same operation since the scum in Labour were in charge. Scotrail was privatised at the tail end of the Major administration, along with BR.

That it's....being.....put......out.....to.....tender.

lot of union jobs lost if trident is abolished.

And what? I'm not going to come here to point out that ****e smells.

If you are trying to say that it's being privatised, it isn't.

Lol, yeah, the hateful left isn't anti business, a movement born of jealousy and packed with hate for people bettering themselves.

Meanwhile protesters attack someone's livelihood, their cafe serving the community, and other terrible lefties think it is deserved.

This thread took a turn to both the pathetic and the disgusting.

I don't see how one can support that but the increasing cost of living in pretty much all of central London is a big problem which the state needs to address, probably by reducing investment into London (and this would simultaneously help with the north-south divide).

Unless I missed it, I don't think anyone in this thread said it was deserved.

By no means is this cafe "serving the community" with overpriced bowls of cereal at £4 a go. If it was in Hampstead or Greenwich then Ok, but not in Whitechapel ffs.

It's a part of a gentrification of the East End, precipitated when hipster clowns like these two started buying property in the area, and exacerbated by the proliferation of nonsensical shops like theirs; all of which would be Ok if it didn't mean that rising prices caused by the sudden influx of new money is effectively forcing people out of an area they may have lived in for a long time, and which they have strong links to, because they can no longer afford to live there.

I guess you and Tories like you think this is A Good Thing because the markets should be able to dictate etc etc. (just as long as it's not you the markets are dictating unpleasantness to).

The protests were ridiculously stupid, far-left communities in the UK have always contained large groups of utter morons whose worldview barely goes beyond "Tories are bad" and who actively foster public ill-will towards their causes.

Hipsters like those twins, whilst irritating, own small business, and should not be the main quarrel of the left.

That said, a tiny group of far-left/anarchist vandals and morons does not equal the left as a whole. For the love of God, chill.

--

I'm really confused by this thread.

So phil is a left-liberal in the US threads and a righty tory in the UK?

I mean, I know that's possible of course given the difference on where the centre lies in each country, just surprised