Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt


by Sunny Hundal    
7:01 pm - May 14th 2011

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Today’s “Rally Against Debt” was a master-class in right-wing failure to convince even their loyal constituents to come out and support their cause.

I turned up around 11am to see a few dozen people milling around, trying to fill up the minuscule area allotted to them.

Blogger Guido Fawkes and Matthew Wallace (formerly TPA) even tried to get a chant going: ‘Balls Balls Balls, Wrong wrong wrong!’ – but even their own mates couldn’t be arsed to join in.

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From across the road

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Record turnout!

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@Lefty_Lisa trying to help the crowd double their numbers

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Red Chinos! And look how much spare space there is!

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I have no idea what this banner was meant to be about but it was awesome

Some more pictures and a cutting write-up from a right-wing perspective here by Thomas Byrne.

More pictures here by Jono Warren

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. David Hodd

Do we have any pictures of walk through Hindhead road tunnel today?

If ever there is a more damning statement on those who believe in laissez faire small government, at the same time as 350 people wanting harder cuts were outnumbered 20 to 1 by people walking through the tunnel to inspect and celebrate a government funded investment in transport infrastructure and support for the environment.

– a further 10,000 people wanted to go through but there was not room.

Just who is Guido Fawkes, Toby Young and Nigel Farce think they are speaking for?

2. Tim Fenton

I think you meant Matthew Sinclair (or Mark Wallace) from the TPA.

And where was Toby Young? I think we should be told, if only because it would lighten the mood. A lot.

Iv heard more about this tiny gathering than the 4000person Hardest Hit protest by disabled people. Not just from the mainstream media but from twitter and blogs such as these. Why is so much easier to get people to cover or go to (even for a laugh) silly marches such as this but something serious like Hardest Hit is just another march that no one pays much attention to?

4. Ron Graves

Re the final banner, he’s either an idiot or Gove didn’t scan quite as well.

5. Ron Graves

Re 3. am Must have been a strange Twitter timeline then – on mine the media were lambasted throughout the day for their coverage of this pathetic assembly compared to the mostly ignored 8,000-person Hardest Hit march (not 4,000).

Is that Tony Blair second from left in the bottom pic?

Love the Thomas Byrne. It’s good to see some faction-fighting among rightys for a change.

How come this rally got so much positive coverage on the MSM ? I mean it was mentioned IN ADVANCE on Classic FM this morning, that’s positive clearly trying to boost numbers.

8. David Hodd

an earlier march by similar minded people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss

Its only really a certain type of person who bothers going to protests; nut jobs, students, the unemployed. Guess taxpayers have better things to do with their saturday mornings, like staying in bed.

10. Richard

“Its only really a certain type of person who bothers going to protests; nut jobs, students, the unemployed. Guess taxpayers have better things to do with their saturday mornings, like staying in bed.”

This is fairly obviously crap – I know several taxpayers who went on the Iraq War march, for example. I like the idea of the unemployed going on protests on masse, perhaps the talk while they wait to sign on is all about making banners and slogans.

You can be a student and a taxpayer, by the way, and a “nut job” and a taxpayer.

Sure, i once new a girl who could pee into a urinal. You can point to the edges of the bell curve as much as you want, the fact remains that it is only a certain type of person who goes to protests, the vast majority are apathetic / have better things to do with their time.

1.

So you want debt? Please take my share. Thanks.

13. David Hodd

@ 12 Max
You make out it is a choice of debt or investment, and have presumed I want “debt”. There are more choices than this. Actually I want justice, but I don’t think I will get it.

Sorry for the delay in responding, I was watching the Eurovision Song Contest – as were (a claimed) 124,000,000 others. Don’t expect many of the 350 UKIP fans will have got back early enough to vote, but their views are largely irrelevent statistically speaking.

Protesting is a leftie activity, this lot should have known better.

I think PJ O’Rourke explained this phenomen years ago:-

“How come,” I asked Andy, “whenever something upsets the Left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch American flag?”

“We have jobs,” said Andy.

@ Ross

It’s Saturday.

@16 That just means that ‘the right’ is largely composed of poorly-paid retail staff. No wonder they’re irate at the world!
heh

18. Strategist

The scandal here was the coverage on all the BBC Radio 4 news bulletins this afternoon. The BBC never reports demos of less than several thousand, wilfully ignored the Gaza protests of 30,000 and more and did not properly cover the recent turnout of half a million. Meanwhile, it did inflate the numbers for the Royal Wedding, which were well below 2 million.

19. DisgustedOfTunbridgeWells

This is fairly obviously crap – I know several taxpayers who went on the Iraq War march, for example. I like the idea of the unemployed going on protests on masse, perhaps the talk while they wait to sign on is all about making banners and slogans.

It’s standard rightist shtick, any mass who disagree with them inevitably aren’t ‘real people in the real world’ or part of the vaunted ‘silent majority’.

20. DBirkin

Seems a bit odd that you don’t quite seem to get what the rally is about ..but you oppose it because it’s a ‘right wing’ thing.

Well Done.

21. So Much For Subtlety

19. DisgustedOfTunbridgeWells – “It’s standard rightist shtick, any mass who disagree with them inevitably aren’t ‘real people in the real world’ or part of the vaunted ‘silent majority’.”

We do have a Conservative Government you know. Well, more or less. As well as a de facto Conservative Opposition. Britain’s silent majority is pretty damn large.

22. Tim Footman

Re: Toby Young.

According to his Tweets, he went to an exhibition about pirates at the (public-funded) Museum of London – which he described as ‘toptastic’ – and then:

“Leaving Pirates exhibition to go to #RallyAgainstDebt, but just heard it’s all over. Well done to those who made it”

With friends like these…

Also, without wishing to make any generalisations about the socio-economic make-up of the rally, I’d be surprised if they staged such an event on the day of a big rugby match.

23. DisgustedOfTunbridgeWells

We do have a Conservative Government you know. Well, more or less. As well as a de facto Conservative Opposition. Britain’s silent majority is pretty damn large.

At least a hundred million I’d say.

Oh, wait a minute though; the ‘Right’ mostly get it their own way, which is why they rarely protest. Though it appears that some here have short memories. If you want to fully understand the Tory psyche and what they feel is worth protesting about, think back to the end of last Century. The ‘Countryside Alliance’ went on the rampage a few years back when their ‘right’ to mutilate small mammals was being tinkered with. Nothing exercises the average Tory sociopath more than having the ability to inflict brutal violence curtailed.

25. Neuroskeptic

“Seems a bit odd that you don’t quite seem to get what the rally is about ..but you oppose it because it’s a ‘right wing’ thing.”

It’s not a right wing thing. The right wing of this country numbers in the millions, if this were a right wing thing it would have got more than a handful of attendees.

I’d say it’s a nasty, pustulant boil on the under-surface of the right wing.

My favourite picture of the day was Harry Cole singing “The One and Only” http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150623555110217&set=a.10150623547885217.681742.503470216&type=1&theater

(Or see the picture here http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2011/05/14/never-mind-the-eurovision-what-about-the-rally-against-debt/ )

28. Mulligrubs

Oh what a jaundiced view of honest and nice people who are doing their modest utmost to restore Britain’s pride in itself and it’s former financial good name.

You unkindly mock because there appeared to be so few at our ‘event’ (we don’t like to use words like protest -it’s not genteel) – but nice people are not rowdy nor are they anxious to belong to what the respectable press might deem ‘ a mob.’ We thought, being a gathering of the better people, we would organise a ‘casual saunter of disapproval.’

Furthermore – Ibsen once memorably said that ‘ The minority are always right.’ And we are right – or Right – one of the two. Who can argue with that? Certainly not Mr Ibsen – and he knew a thing or two about national debt and what’s right – I’m sure.

Our master stroke was to succeed in encouraging the silent majority to stay at home and join us in spirit – which they did in their loyal millions – although you won’t read that in the yellow press.

We may not appear to be many – we may not appear to be compos mentis – we may not even appear to have any dress sense or poster sense – but then – don’t you know – we are English gentlefolk and you cannot deny that we are, above all else, – consistent. That in itself demands respect.

What would we like? Solvency! When would we like it? As soon as is practically possible – but please – don’t risk doing anything that will cause our shares to fall in value. How about charging urchins to play in public parks – now that’s the sort of sensible thinking we should adopt nationwide. Tally Ho!

Still a lot of people not quite getting it.

This isn’t a left vs right thing, its a state control versus personal freedom. The public have a far bigger amount of credit available to them and if they WANTED to bail something out, they would. What we have, is not much different to identity theft.

The government is pretending its citizens are are clambering all over themselves to hire ‘ Diversity coordinators’ or bail out countries that retire their citizens at 50 & refuse to change it because the EU mugs will keep throwing money at them.

Again if we WANTED to give money to Greece or the like, we know where it is. The fact that we aren’t allowed to make the choice shows you they know it is unpopular.

Again, this opposition, for anyone with a clue about politics could come from either left or right, and I was speaking to plenty of left wing libertarians at the rally yesterday.

It may prevent your cognitive dissonance to label this all as a right wing thing but anyone with the capacity to think on more than one scale will see it differently.

@29 Oh we get it. We just don’t have tinfoil hats.
I will say this though, libertarians FUCKING LOVE hyperbole.

”Libraries Suck” said one placard.

A pretty selfish idea I think.

32. Dbirkin

Damon, that was the sodding counter protest.

33. Dbirkin

Cylux, you may get it, but the muppets calling a right wing rally obviously don’t.

I reckon it would of been a bigger protest if they held it in Second Life, then they could of called it a mass protest…but still there would of been the those who wouldn’t turn up, those who are part of libertarian COD:Black Ops wing and those who are part of libertarian WoW wing.

Apparently being against debt is now a right wing thing. I presume its leftist to enslave children to debt in the interests public sector unions?

Lets be honest, LC was always going to look down on a march where people didn’t smash windows and spit on the police.

Damon, that was the sodding counter protest.

:) Well their counter protest worked then. That was just an image that popped up at the end of the Politics Show this afternoon. Well done them for their sabotage.

Nick Clegg mentioned how much we were having to borrow every day to service the debt. It was a huge figure. Can’t remember what it was, but it was tens of millions every day I think.

@35 Yes, because the Rally was purely about debt, and not say other issues which were then childishly reduced to just being ‘about debt’.

Damon,
£120 million a day just in interest payments, and as we are still adding to the debt (the cuts have only slowed the growth of the debt by a fraction), the amount we spend on interest alone for our debts will be bigger than the entire educational budget in the next few years…

Wanting to keep interest payments as low as possible so the money we do spend goes to services is apparently selfish though…hmmmm

“I have no idea what this banner was meant to be about but it was awesome”

Not a Pink Floyd fan then?

40. Chaise Guevara

@ 33 Dbirkin

“Cylux, you may get it, but the muppets calling a right wing rally obviously don’t.”

So you write a long post in support of this rally on the basis that teh taxations iz evilz, then complain when people call it right wing? Get out of town. On the economic side of the scale, support for low taxation is seen as a right-wing stance, at least in Britain. Don’t get your knickers in a twist just because you’ve redefined the word to suit your own ends and other people fail to follow suit.

@chaise (carriage) , I haven’t said anything about taxation, just spending…if all the government did was spend our tax we wouldn’t have a debt would we.

The left or right is about what the government does with the money, what’s its aim is. Libertarianism is about what it has a mandate to spend on.

42. Chaise Guevara

@ Dbirkin

“The left or right is about what the government does with the money, what’s its aim is. Libertarianism is about what it has a mandate to spend on.”

That’s incomplete. The right (economically speaking) tend to say that the government should collect less money in the first place, as do libertarians. I’ve never come across a libertarian who believes in high taxation.

If this lot really do only object to debt – if the only point of the rally is to say that the goverment should spend within its means – then this isn’t a directly right-wing thing. However, I doubt it.

“Iv heard more about this tiny gathering than the 4000person Hardest Hit protest by disabled people. Not just from the mainstream media but from twitter and blogs such as these. Why is so much easier to get people to cover or go to (even for a laugh) silly marches such as this but something serious like Hardest Hit is just another march that no one pays much attention to?”

I’ve noticed the same thing. A number of factors, I think. First, the media automatically side with “the mainstream”, in relation to which protestors automatically code as “extremists”. Secondly, the Hardest Hit protest featured disabled people, who are normally invisible anyway, and so can be presented in such as way as to allow the media to spread the slander that most disabled people are benefit cheats. Furthermore, usually the media would have presented any protest march in terms of “violence” which occurred, which would be described in such a way as to support the accusation that protest is fundamentally criminal. Hence their difficulty with the Hardest Hit protest. Those involved were visibly disabled and attacking their good characters would have been therefore more difficult. There was no violence – since even dragging a protestor out of his wheelchair to detain him would have been presented as protestor violence, not police violence, the event must have been absolutely violence free – and therefore the march was of no use to the establishment narrative which portrays protest as extremist. The best way to deal with it, consequently, was to ignore it, which at least furthers the desired impression that protest is futile and we should just sit down and get on with being repressed by the corporate blood suckers like good little citizens.

“Nick Clegg mentioned how much we were having to borrow every day to service the debt. It was a huge figure. Can’t remember what it was, but it was tens of millions every day I think.” You shouldn’t believe everything Nick Clegg says. Actually you shouldn’t believe anything Nick Clegg says.

@carriage , I have never met a libertarian that wants more taxation either, but have met plenty right wing folks that believe in high tax n spend, they often believe in big authoritarian government…unlike libertarians that want small government. You can also blend libertarianism with left or right wing to have small state but with that small state having a left or right aim

46. George East

I see Toby Young after tarting the rally against debt around the media, couldn’t even be bothered to turn up. Too busy googling himself by the looks of things.

http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2011/05/a-response-to-toby-young/

26. Toby Young did make it very clear a long time before the rally that he was double booked and would be taking his children and their friends out for the day.

48. Winston "roots" Chruchill

HA HA HA HA HA – does this mean that the number of people FOR the cuts (350ish) are outnumbered by those AGAINST the cuts (500,000) by nearly 1500 to 1?

I laughed and laughed until I pissed myself – that Mark littlecock was on the telly saying how ‘people’ felt the cuts weren’t hard enough.

Now you’ve had your say – FUCK OFF back to whatever privileged Lassez Faire background you came from you pencil dick fuck.

I feel quite wierd finally being on the side of the majority for once….

49. Winston "roots" Chruchill

Briar,

..and if Nick Clegg had attended history lessons at school he would know the nation has been borrowing ‘eye-watering amounts’ since the Napoleonic wars!

It’s like the politicians woke up one day and forgot how the system works. THEY choose capitalism – and then THEY are surprised when the country ends up in massive debt.

Did any of these clueless retarded fuckwits even go to school? – doesn’t say much for the journalists either – why has nobody asked this question – not even once – in the last 3 years of crisis.

Arseholes.

50. Chaise Guevara

@ 45 DBerkin

” I have never met a libertarian that wants more taxation either, but have met plenty right wing folks that believe in high tax n spend, they often believe in big authoritarian government…unlike libertarians that want small government.”

That’s why I was talking about the economic metric. You really can’t complain that people prioritise the economic sense of “right-wing” in a story about fiscal policy.

Why do you keep calling me “carriage”? If it’s supposed to be a hilarious joke, I don’t get it.

51. Vladimir

@35 “Lets be honest, LC was always going to look down on a march where people didn’t smash windows and spit on the police.”

Au contraire, LC would have loved that. If these right-wing types had acted like the right-wing types we see on TV, that would have been much better. They could have spray-painted a few swastikas, maybe vandalised a mosque and beaten up an immigrant. They’re all brownshirts, right, Sally?

As it is, they just look put-upon. So much for the old “right wing conspiracy” line that’s trotted out to explain why the people keep voting against Labour or AV or whatever. You’d think the conspiracy would be able to get a few more people on the streets, wouldn’t you?

@48. I am glad you feel so happy to be part of a gang, particularly as you are so certain it is the right one.

52. Dbirkin

I’m just being silly, ‘Chaise’ means carriage..the murderer who features on a lot of rather silly people’s t-shirts is referred to as ‘Che’.

Anyway, back to subject. Again, right wing and left wing are irrelevant when it comes to the libertarian – statist scale. The rally had both left and right wingers in attendance.

Winston “roots” Chruchill.

Strange to think that you feel you’re part of a majority.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the vast majority of people voted at the election for parties which very clearly set out to make cuts. Just because you mustered up a big crowd to protest against them, I’d suggest that’s more to do with the fact that your viewpoint does only represent a minority and that’s why you have to take to the streets because you’ll never achieve your aims via normal democratic methods.

54. David Hodd

53. James

“Sorry to burst your bubble but the vast majority of people voted at the election for parties which very clearly set out to make cuts”

More bubble bursting:

all votes cast in UK election: 27,148,510
votes cast for 3 main parties: 26,150,105
population of UK: 61,792,000
population of UK of voting age: 48,675,400 (figs from ONS)

I’m afraid this is no VAST majority. At best you can claim that of those who voted, the vast majority voted in 2010 for parties which included cuts amongst their manifesto commitments. With only one vote to place, people had to make the best choice available to them over a selection of policy issues. For an unknown number of votes the chosen party’s position on cuts was a critical factor. Those people voting for a party with a cuts policy account for about 42% of the UK population. And that was their view on that day.

Interestingly, only about 350 people of those 26 million voting for a party with a cuts agenda in 2010 felt it necessary to prop up their support for this policy last week.

You really need a stronger argument to rubbish Root’s view that he feels part of the majority for once.

55. Chaise Guevara

@ 52 Dbirkin

“I’m just being silly, ‘Chaise’ means carriage..the murderer who features on a lot of rather silly people’s t-shirts is referred to as ‘Che’.”

TBH, I was so sure you were making some oblique reference to Geuvara that I didn’t think it might be related to “chaise”. I was referencing “chair” rather than “carriage”, as it happens.

“Anyway, back to subject. Again, right wing and left wing are irrelevant when it comes to the libertarian – statist scale. The rally had both left and right wingers in attendance.”

No. The terms we’re discussing are admittedly inconsistent, but speakers of English generally treat a low-tax policy as right-wing and a high-tax policy as left-wing. Using different definitions of words to everyone else is pointless and unhelpful. And it certainly doesn’t make you right when you tell other people they’re incorrect because they’re not using your special, non-standard definitions.

Broadly speaking, here’s how it tends to break down from the traditional UK perspective:

Economics: libertarian = right, socialist = left.
Social: conservative = right, liberal = left.
Government power: authoritarian = right, civil liberties = left.

You probably object to this because you feel (rightly) that libertarianism isn’t connected in principle to conservatism or authoritarianism, and indeed these three concepts are rather strange bedfellows. But that really doesn’t mean you can expect everyone else to ignore linguistic convention.

56. Ewarwoowoo

Richard

…sounds like slavery to me – I mean taxpayers staying in bed because they are so tired from working all week they don’t have the energy to get up and stop the attack on their lives….

I am a taxpayer – I pay mountains and mountains of tax – but I went on the anti-cuts march in March – yes, in my free time.

It seems that Dirk is one of those “once a slave – always a slave” types.

57. Winston “roots” Chruchill

James

“Sorry to burst your bubble but the vast majority of people voted at the election for parties which very clearly set out to make cuts.”

Maybe a quick education for you in democracy. First of all MOST people DIDN’T VOTE AT ALL. Which means they have lost interest, lost faith – or can’t give a rats about faux democracy anymore.

…and MOST people who did bother to vote did what they always do and voted along party lines – with the swing votes going to the Liberals (who before the election seemed to be the most ‘liberal’ party)

What a shame you take the talking heads of TV and glibly repeat it without bothering to do any research yourself.

The claim that most people voted for cuts is a LIE – if they did then surely….by sheer probablilty….there would have been more people at the ‘for cuts’ rally than the ‘against cuts’ rally.

You can’t even blame it on lefties having no jobs – because both marches were on a saturday.
I work – I went to the March 26th rally – in fact i work in the city.

Go and put that in your ‘prejudice machine’ and see what it spits out.

58. Winston “roots” Chruchill

David Hodd

“You really need a stronger argument to rubbish Root’s view that he feels part of the majority for once.”

**Correction** David – he needs AN argument.

I never believed this “the people voted for the cuts” crap – and I was very pleased to hear a counter rally so we can see the true picture. Now we know that the VAST MAJORITY are against cuts and on top of that they are also far more committed.

If you watched that programme “the street that cut everything” – it was a real eye opener for the reality of the cuts – as opposed to the soft concept of ‘cuts’ as they were presented before the election.

“trimming the fat” I believe is the right wing phrase – and the people sucked it up like fools.
…now they are rueing the day they trusted politicians. There is no fat to trim – councils are (on the whole) incredibley efficient and are irreplaceable for some people.

I saw Marx’s surplus value in action right there in Preston – the one lady who was being supported heavily by the state has no choice but to take state handouts – because surplus value has been extracted to such a point that working has become ‘not worth it’ with the wages offered by private companies.

…but I don’t expect James to understand that – it requires reading and concentration and an absorbtion of the FACTS.

59. Winston “roots” Chruchill

Vladimir

“@48. I am glad you feel so happy to be part of a gang, particularly as you are so certain it is the right one.”

The left one Vladimir – the LEFT one.

It’s not a gang – it’s called being part of the human race. When humans are under attack they tend to work together…..and the power of working together can be frightening to the ‘individualist’.

60. DBirkin

@Chaise
No. The terms we’re discussing are admittedly inconsistent, but speakers of English generally treat a low-tax policy as right-wing and a high-tax policy as left-wing.

I would refer you to the Nolan Scale at this point.

The misunderstandings of the many do not make them right

61. Chaise Guevara

@ 60 DBirkin

“I would refer you to the Nolan Scale at this point.

The misunderstandings of the many do not make them right”

But it’s not a misunderstanding: language is informed by usage. The fact that the many disagree with you and David Nolan does not make them wrong. Who says you get to redefine language to suit your ends?

You’re still making the same error: using an unsual definition of a word and blaming everyone else for not blithely falling in line. It’s unhelpful and, quite frankly, conceited.

62. DBirkin

@chaise “Who says you get to redefine language to suit your ends” and “language is informed by usage” are conflicting ideas are they not? The opposite of authoritarian is libertarian, as authoritarian governments can be left or right so can libertarian.
Capitalism vs Socialism is the correct axis for economy. I think you’ll find that is the most used and understood axis

63. Chaise Guevara

@ Dbirkin

““Who says you get to redefine language to suit your ends” and “language is informed by usage” are conflicting ideas are they not?”

Um, no. Unless you’re deliberately misunderstanding me to be annoying – I made it pretty clear I was talking about general usage.

“The opposite of authoritarian is libertarian, as authoritarian governments can be left or right so can libertarian.”

Only if you want to include high taxation under authoritarianism. Which I wouldn’t (general usage again).

“Capitalism vs Socialism is the correct axis for economy. I think you’ll find that is the most used and understood axis”

If you like. The first is right-wing, the second is left-wing.

Let me present you with an analogy of what you’re doing, using examples with less emotional weight. An archaic meaning of the word “silly” is “holy”. However, when people say “silly” they normally mean something more like “foolish”. If I responded every time someone was described as “silly” by saying something like “Don’t be ridiculous – silly means holy, and he’s not even religious” I would be being very unhelpful.

Now, your restrictive definitions of left and right are not archaic, but they are at odds with general usage. If you doubt that, observe this site every time a socialist-leaning article is published – someone will inevitably comment that the article shows up the problems with “the left”. So you insisting everyone uses your preferred, unusual definitions is unhelpful – and telling them they’re wrong for NOT using them is downright arrogant. You are not the Lord Protector of the English Language, you do not get to trump general usage.

@63 Hold up, in your example wouldn’t using “the left” when commenting about a socialist-leaning article be quite correct and still fit in with DBirkin’s stance? Surely you meant liberal-leaning article?

65. SadButMadLad

Thanks for all the publicity you guys!

66. Dbirkin

@chaise, they are not unusual, they are the understood definition of the words , point in case , there is a movement called libertarian socialism, under the incorrect definition this would be a contradiction, however with the correct definition it isn’t.

Anyone that is unclear, I would recommend they read up on political science, uninformed people making errors are uninformed people making errors, not a natural evolution of words, which is why I have taken the time to point out and correct people when they make the mistake of lumping libertarianism with left or right.

67. Chaise Guevara

@ 64 Cylux

“Hold up, in your example wouldn’t using “the left” when commenting about a socialist-leaning article be quite correct and still fit in with DBirkin’s stance? Surely you meant liberal-leaning article?”

No. DBirkin is defining left/right wing as being purely about social freedoms. So left = liberal would fit his stance, assuming you mean what I mean by “liberal” (pro-gay-rights etc). Left = socialist would not. From the way he’s talking, the terms left-wing and socialist (or right-wing and conservative) have nothing to do with each other.

68. Chaise Guevara

@ 66 Dbirkin

“chaise, they are not unusual, they are the understood definition of the words, point in case , there is a movement called libertarian socialism, under the incorrect definition this would be a contradiction, however with the correct definition it isn’t. ”

“Understood” meaning “as understood by you and whoever came up with the term libertarian socialism”.

“Anyone that is unclear, I would recommend they read up on political science, uninformed people making errors are uninformed people making errors, not a natural evolution of words, which is why I have taken the time to point out and correct people when they make the mistake of lumping libertarianism with left or right.”

Whatever, I’m bored of you. The fact that you don’t understand language is essentially your problem, not mine. I’m not wasting any more time on your egocentricity.

69. DBirkin

You could have just said ‘whoops’ instead of throwing your toys out of the pram.

70. Chaise Guevara

@ 69

I didn’t know “whoops” meant “you fail linguistics”. Or are you redefining words again?

Was my response arsey? Yes it was. That’s because it’s annoying to talk to people who think that the fact that they use words differently to other people must be down to “uninformed people making errors”.

71. DBirkin

If I called a banana a ham sandwich, I would be incorrect.
Words evolve over time, they haven’t evolved to mean something else, we can tell this with dictionaries, if people want to start using words to mean something they don’t, they should not try and assert that their meaning is correct (i.e. libertarianism IS a right wing rally”) while admitting their definition is not one that is held true by the english dictionary, the academics in the subject, or a majority of people.

It seems to me, you realised that you were wrong, (seeing as there is an ideology that combines aspects which you believed where opposite to each other) and decided to use a rather flimsy excuse about not wasting your time to hide this. There is nothing wrong with finding out something new.

No-one should be a dogmatic as that.

I had to google Libertarian Socialism. It’s largely what I knew as Anarchism.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt http://bit.ly/kBWlsv

  2. dhugoza

    RT @libcon: Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt http://bit.ly/kBWlsv

  3. Joanny Stewart

    RT @libcon: Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt http://bit.ly/kBWlsv

  4. Norman Nicholson

    RT @libcon: Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt http://bit.ly/kBWlsv

  5. Nasir Wilson

    Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt | Liberal Conspiracy http://bit.ly/lL2FJw

  6. Peter Underwood

    Always funny when right wing twats realise how isolated they are. http://t.co/ydysd5c via @libcon

  7. Donald Ragazzi

    Pictures from the poor #rallyagainstdebt | Liberal Conspiracy http://bit.ly/kR3dFT

  8. Tim Hardy

    #rallyagainstdebt branded "a circlejerk for fools" by young Tory @ByrneToff http://j.mp/kV3oMU (via @libcon http://t.co/ogGcrwt)

  9. sunny hundal

    Behold the power of right-wing blogs and @toadmeister! RT @lefty_lisa: http://bit.ly/jMSDqn (pics here http://bit.ly/kBWlsv)

  10. Johanna Anderson

    Behold the power of right-wing blogs and @toadmeister! RT @lefty_lisa: http://bit.ly/jMSDqn (pics here http://bit.ly/kBWlsv)

  11. Richard Murphy

    Behold the power of right-wing blogs and @toadmeister! RT @lefty_lisa: http://bit.ly/jMSDqn (pics here http://bit.ly/kBWlsv)

  12. If The Only Criticism of RAD is Attendance, I’d Call It A Success « The Logical Conclusion

    [...] An open exchange of ideas? A complicated debunking of the movement's aims? No, you see two things: people rejoicing in the fact that their union-funded self-interest march was bigger and a left-wing circle jerk over the fact that they managed to infiltrate the Rally and get some [...]





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