I'm no fan of David Cameron, but to be seen as a credible alternative government, Labor needs a credible Leader; and the old anti everything commie (nut job?) ain't it!

Even so, a significant level of dissatisfaction among the moribund, with the patently counterproductive austerity measures, will see this old dinosaur lead Labor to it's next electoral defeat?

Or a great big new depression?

What's next, the emergence of the extreme far right as counterbalance?

Sort of reminds one of the foreign film out of Checholavia, called Insane, and parodies a story where the inmates have taken over and are running the asylum?

We should seize the day and make conditions here so palatable for high tech energy dependant European business and cashed up European self funded retirees alike, we could be swimming in foreign capital?

Massive job expansion and able to build all the missing infrastructure needed to create a world leading nation; or put another way, an island of sanity in a world gone mad!

Left/right extremism by any other name has had its day, and can only ever do more harm than good!
Rhrosty.

Jonathan J. Ariel you are incorrect in saying,

“a terrorist group proscribed by Australia, HAMAS,”

It is not the group itself which is proscribed but the armed wing

• Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades
Listed 9 November 2003, re-listed 5 June 2005, 7 October 2005, 10 September 2007, 8 September 2009, 18 August 2012 and 11 August 2015

http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/default.aspx

Jonathon, I think you rather miss the point about the astonishing rise of Mr Corbyn. Membership of the Labour Party has trebled since the election as people sign up in order to vote him into power. The opinion polls suggest that far from being an "out there" socialist, he is tapping into a chord of public opinion that is sick to death of, inter alia, austerity as a cure; endless wars on behalf of the US and its corporate bosses; and the growing divide between rich and poor in the Uk.

The fact that anti-cornyn Labour people are openly talking about a coup in the event that Corbyn wins reveals the profoundly undemocratic nature of the Blairite factions within the party.

As for the US being a worse terrorist organisation than ISIS? Well, that is by far the majority opinion in the Middle East as shown in two Gallup polls in 14 countries in the region. If you want to add up the bodies, the US has been responsible for more deaths as a result of its terrorism (Vietnam, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya to name but a few) than IS is ever likely to manage. You also conveniently ignore that IS is a creation of the US and its Gulf allies, as the US DIA acknowledged according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch under FOI laws.

We also know, for example, that wounded IS fighters are treated in Turkish hospitals run by Erdogan's daughter. Their revenue comes in part from oil sales from the Mosul region sold via a Turkish company controlled by Erdogan's son. IS fighters are also treated in Israeli military hospitals in the Golan Heights.

Corbyn's main crime seems to be in pointing out the sickening hypocrisy that dominates western foreign policy discourse, and that of course is unforgivable.

The Blair brand is toxic. Not because of what he's done since leaving, but because of what he did in government. The British people want the opposite.

This article is long on spin and rhetoric but short on substance. Wanting to reverse some of the privatisation of essential services that occurred in the 1980s and 90s is nothing like "Cuba's centrally planned fiasco" except to those who are trying to fool others into dismissing it without considering what he has to say. It won't work in Britain; there's a broad (albeit not universal) consensus that railway privatisation was a failure, and that privatisation of the water companies benefitted their shareholders at public expense.

As for his foreign policy, keep in mind that that's not something under the control of the party leader, so Britain will almost certainly remain in NATO even if Corbyn becomes PM. And I urge you to overcome your outrage long enough to read http://www.afr.com/opinion/henry-kissinger-jeremy-corbyn-and-their-odd-thing-in-common-ukraine-20150820-gj4a7g – you'll see his views aren't that outlandish at all.

Aiden

Many on the Labour left feel as you do, and Corbyn’s lead in the polls suggests he is likely to win the Labour leadership. But the fact is that Blair is the only Labour leader to actually win a UK general election since 1974. Corbyn would be the most left-wing leader Labour has had has since Michael Foot, who was an electoral train wreck. I seriously doubt Corbyn could win a general election.

I don't know much about Corbyn, but he sounds like he walks the walk. He was known as having one of the lowest expense claims of any MP during the 2009 MP expenses scandal, which saw a number of MP jailed.

Compare that with Blair, whose expense records were shredded "by mistake".

James O'Neill is correct, there is much evidence that ISIS is a creation of the US and its allies. It is like a rerun of Operation Cyclone, the CIA program which funded the Mujahadeen (Islamic Militants) in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Led to the rise of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Here is an interview with Michael Flynn - the former head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and JSOC (the covert operations group which includes assassins who report directly to the US President) who says the Intelligence agencies knew of the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq but the US administration did nothing to stop it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3j8OYKgn4 - need to go 8 minutes into interview.

Only the MSM could miss a story this big.

ISIS are despicable, but how evil are they? Would they kill half a million children for their cause? I hope we never find out, but we know The US government would. 500,000 Iraqi children died due to economic sanctions put in place to get rid of Hussein. It didn't work - it took an illegal pre-emptive war based on lies and propaganda to achieve the regime change they were after. That is mind-blowingly evil isn't it?

Here is the interview where Madeline Albright says 500,000 dead Iraqi children was "worth it" chilling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8

Love Peace Justice.

It does my heart good to see this pretend tory and his ilk totally losing their minds that people have turned against them. How can it be?
Tony Bleeegh was god they say. New labour won elections they say. They lost them too remember.

The people know what they want and it is not you heartless liars of "new" labour.
They want the old Labour back and Corbyn is the man to do it.
If you traitorous scabs dont like it then tough. Go join the aristos in the tory party.
Oh thats right. They hate and despise you neuvo riche ponces more than the common man does.

Tony Bleeegh is a war criminal just the same as howard the coward and the shrub.
Oh for a government that will bring them before the Hague and then HANG THEM.

According to two opinion polls taken in July (YouGov and Comres), not only is Corbyn in-tune with the British public, but the two major parties are hopelessly OUT of tune.

60% support renationalisation of the railways; 20% opposed (even 50% of Tory voters supported it)
56% support a top 75% tax rate for incomes over £1 million; 31% opposed
64% support an international convention on the banning of nuclear weapons showed; 21% opposed
59% support introducing a rental cap on landlords; 7% opposed
60% support a mandatory living wage (as opposed to a minimum wage), 31% opposed
49% support axing university tuition fees, 31% opposed

On Corbyn’s opposition to the UK’s wars:
39% support the Iraq War, 43% opposed
24% support bombing Syria, 60% opposed.

Also, on the much-repeated claim that Corbyn’s ‘left’-leaning, anti-austerity policies are ‘unelectable’, because the British public traditionally ‘votes conservative’, consider the results of the recent UK election. The Liberal Democrats lost 4 million voters (15% vote reduction), having turned on their original electoral pledges to fight austerity and rising inequality. To ascertain where those votes are likely to have gone:

600,000 increase to the Tories (+0.8%)
3 million increase to Ukip (+9%)
1 million increase to the SNP (+3%)
1 million increase to the Greens (+2.8%)
900,000 increase to Labour (+1.5%)

So … the three anti-austerity, non-conservative parties (Ukip, SNP and Greens) increased their vote by a combined 5 million, while the ‘business as usual’ parties only increased their vote by 1.5 million.

Far from being a looney left Marxist, Jeremy Corbyn is actually a moderate centrist, offering the British public their best chance yet of ending its catastrophic three-decades long descent to the far Right and its hated ‘there is no alternative’ Blairite-Thatcherism.

(Main sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-jeremy-corbyn-policies-that-most-people-actually-agree-with-10407148.html)

Rhosty

You say “I'm no fan of David Cameron, but to be seen as a credible alternative government, Labor needs a credible Leader; and the old anti everything commie (nut job?) ain't it”!

Exactly my sentiment. Choosing Corbyn is a feel good exercise for the faithful and not a general election winning strategy.

Sam C

I believe you are splitting hairs by mentioning that Australia (and for that matter the UK) proscribes HAMAS’s military wing and not the entire group as a terror unit.

That is akin to saying “Stalin didn’t starve the Ukrainians by transporting most of Ukraine’s harvest to the Soviet Union and selling the rest. It was his Dept of Agriculture and Department of Trade.

That said, I suppose we can agree that the EU considers HAMAS lock stock ‘n barrel a terrorist organisation.

James

Permit me to clarify one point. By “out there” I did not refer to any political philosophy per se. I meant that Mr Corbyn is a successful media campaigner.
I accept that he is energising the Left and is responsible for a rise in membership of the Labour Party.

What I am trying to get across in the column is that a strategy based on appealing in the main to a party’s base at the direct expense of appealing to those who last time voted for another party is a fool’s errand. This strategy is also by default adopted by US politicians in their primaries. It is not a recipe to bridge the divide and “reach across the aisle”

I agree with your observation that many in Britain are tired of wars, austerity and the ever growing gap between rich and poor.

My point is that any attempt to radically upend the current economic system will only scare the horses. If Corbyn and his comrades want to win office, I mean seriously win, then a more measured, less radical manifesto has a better chance to win the support of many Britons.

And it’s the Britons outside Labour who the party needs to attract.

A question that is not being asked is this: where are Corbyn’s supporters coming from? If from the benches of the hitherto apathetic, then jolly good for him. But if they are defecting from the Liberal Democrats (or unhappy Scots) then he isn’t really growing the Left vote.

You say “Corbyn's main crime seems to be in pointing out the sickening hypocrisy that dominates western foreign policy discourse” I grant you that many in the UK are unhappy with government policies. But surely the hypocrisy is not limited just to foreign affairs. Is it?

Hi Killarney,

Love your maths ! The Lib Dems must have lost far more than 15 % of their vote, unless they polled around 25 million ?

And that distribution cracks out at six and a half million in total. I don't think the Lib Dems have ever won that many votes (and are never likely to).

Back to the entertainment of the day: Cameron must be praying for a Corbyn win. The next five years are going to be a riot of fun. Wouldn't be dead for quids !

So are you putting your money on Corbyn and the ease with which the British public can see through the evils of Cameron ? Or is the power of the banksters and corporate capitalist so monolithically overwhelming that the British public will be blind to the manifest superiority of Corbyn's ideology ?

Just wondering :)

Joe

Loudmouth

I meant to say that the SWING against the Lib Dems was -15% (as calculated by the British electoral office), not the vote reduction, which was more like 60%.

The reduction in Lib Dem votes was still roughly 4 million, much of which went to the SNP, UKIP and Greens.

Sorry, Killarney, I'm a bit thick - what's the difference between a 'Swing' and a 'vote reduction' ?

And surely not a loss of four million votes ? Did the Lib Dems get 6.6 million votes at the 2010 election ?

Thanks,

Joe

Aidan

I agree with you that some on the left are not enamoured of the Blair years. As you say, “not because of what he's done since leaving, but because of what he did in government”.

And as to your comments on privatisations in the United Kingdom only benefitting the 1%. I agree, in many, many cases yes. But benefitting the 1% isn’t just limited to socialists in government. It was the Tories who underpriced Royal Mail in Oct 2013. Underpriced by some 38%, see

http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16733

And not putting the taxpayer first is not limited to the United Kingdom.

But there is no way Corbyn can un-privatise an asset without digging deep into the Exchequer.

BJelly

I agree that Corbyn “walks the walk”. He is the anti-politician. A straight shooting kind of guy. It’s what he’s loaded in his rife that scares many. And if what you say is true about expenses, then that is admirable.

Let’s not forget that Blair was very popular. He topped the popularity charts with a whopping 93% approval after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

As to your link of Michael T. Flynn, the retired United States Army lieutenant general, I caught the interview a couple of weeks go thank you, and he does make a lot of sense. But he does have the benefit of hindsight when he opines, doesn't he?

Yes, Loudmouth.
6.8 million votes actually.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Jonathan J. Ariel
Why do you consider that a problem? Governments have nationalized and renationalized things before.

The worst that could happen is a slight devaluation of the pound. Which will probably also be one of the results of the Cameron government's economic mismanagement.

Loudmouth

‘Sorry, Killarney, I'm a bit thick’

Oh, that’s nice to know, considering you called me an ‘idiot’ in your last 3 posts on a separate thread.

‘… what's the difference between a 'Swing' and a 'vote reduction' ?

Damned if I know … but as I understand it, a ‘swing percentage’ is based on a formula that measures a party’s changing vote pattern against the changing vote patterns of the other parties in an election. They add it all up and divide it by something or other and then arrive at some kind of average percentage. So the swing percentage often deviates significantly from the actual increase or reduction in votes. For example, the SNP increased its number of seats from 6 to 56 in the last election, but the calculated swing percentage was only 3.1%.

Wiki explains it a bit more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_(politics)

‘Did the Lib Dems get 6.6 million votes at the 2010 election?’

The actual 2010 vote count was 6,836,248. In 2015, it was 2,415,862. Ouch!

Jonathon

Corbyn’s economic policies are backed by several leading economists, including Nobel prizewinner Joseph Stiglitz. Also, a recent open statement was made by 41 leading UK economists, which backed Corbyn’s policies. So he is by no means an isolated voice.

Corbyn has been in politics for at least 30 years – a career that has encompassed the worst of the Thatcher/Blair years. By now, he would know the prevailing mantra backwards, i.e. that Labour are absolutely hopeless economic managers. He’s an intelligent, astute man and he would know that proving his economic acumen has to be a major priority of his leadership.

Contrary to all the negative framing by the media and the Blairites, in all his interviews Corbyn never proposes an increase in expenditure without providing a corresponding decrease. He also shows that he is aware of how speculative investment – at the expense of productive investment – has ruined the British economy, with a devastating impact on its society (except for the top 1%).

Whatever eventuates, Western socio-economic policies have moved so far to the right that they have become dysfunctional and downright dangerous. The sheer force of gravity is pulling us back to the centre. If Corbyn's bid for the leadership is destroyed or if he is overthrown after becoming leader, there will be others to replace him - maybe not in Britain, but elsewhere. Sooner or later, Blair-Thatcherite-Reagan neoliberalism will implode on its own corruption.

Aidan

You suggest the UK nationalise industries.
But why? To what end?
What does the taxpayer gain by say “unprivatising” those assets be they million pound or multimillion pound assets that were sold too cheaply?
And I grant you some were.

Such an exercise will cost a packet. How much is a good question.

Estimates for the Budget 2015-16 are as follows:

Income £673B Expenses £742B

By how much will the deficit balloon with nationalisation?

If the point of your argument is to “stick it” to those who bought public assets “cheaply”, is it not better to legislate for price controls, thereby simultaneously giving the working man and woman say cheaper train tickets, water prices etc and in the process depriving asset owners of outrageous returns on investment?

Killarney

I read what the Columbia University professor wrote about Corbyn. I don’t think he is a cheerleader for Corbyn per se. He does however indicate that while promising to advance the middle class, both President Bill Clinton and PM Tony Blair executed policies that saw the rich swell in wealth while the poor swell in number.

Jonathan J. Ariel,

It's nothing to do with sticking it to anyone. The objective would be to ensure the benefits of public investment in the industry are passed on to the customers.

I don't know how much the deficit would balloon with nationalisation - that would depend on how quickly it's done, what the businesses are worth and how much taxes are increased. It also depends on the state of the economy – though it is at last improving, it could still be argued that at this stage of the economic cycle it's too small. Five years from now there may not be a deficit nor a need for one to stimulate the economy. There are too many unknowns to make a reliable prediction.

Hi Aidan,

Perhaps the Greek model could be emulated: a nationalised railways system, the costs of which have been compared to giving everybody taxis to and from work, and all for free. To buy out the British companies already operating the rail network would probably cost only a few hundred billion.

So after only a few years, a Corbyn government would have kicked up the deficit by not much, perhaps only a trillion, especially if he also padded the bureaucracy ('public employment'), made health and education completely free, and increased pensions, etc.

Seriously, is re-nationalising the railways really an issue in Britain ? As Jonathan says, why not simply legislate to limit fare levels and improve 'safety standards', i.e. forcing companies to upgrade their stock ? Why pay out a bonanza to rail-capitalists, probably on ageing stock ?

Just wondering. Of course, a Corbyn success is about as hypothetical as you can get.

Joe

Hi Johnathon,

Re Jeremy Corbyn's expenses:
"MPs were paid £3.1m in expenses during the first three and a half months after the general election.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority - which runs the new system - has published 22,000 claims paid out between 7 May and 31 August.

Of those MPs who claimed expenses, the largest amount - £20,752 - was paid to Tory Keith Simpson while Labour's Jeremy Corbyn had the lowest at £8.70.

Nick Clegg was among 78 MPs who claimed no expenses at all over the period."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11899534

contd.

Re Michael T Flynn - no it was not about hindsight. He admitted that as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency he saw the report in August 2012 that the US was supporting radical muslim groups eg the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda (the so-called moderate Muslims the US was assisting) to help oust the Assad regime in Syria - as well as the risk these groups might form a calaphate, but nothing was done - not just ignored, but worse.

Mehdi Hasan:"Did you say we shouldn't be supporting these groups?"
Michael Flynn:"I did, I mean we argued about the different groups that were there and we said who was involved here and I will tell you that I do believe that the intelligence was very clear. And now it's a matter of whether or not policy is going to be as clear and as defining and as precise as it needs to be and I don't think it was."
...
MH:"You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew those groups were around (Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda etc) and you saw this analysis and you were arguing against it - but who wasn't listening?"

MF:"I think the administration."

MH:"So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis.

MF:"I don't know if they turned a blind eye. I think it was a decision, it was a willful decision."

MH:"A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?"

MF:"A wilful decision to do what they're doing, which you have to really ask the President what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place because it is very, very confusing. I'm sitting here today Mehdi, and I can't tell you exactly what that is, and I've been at this for a long time"

Sounds like chaos huh?

Johnathon, why would the US president ignore his spy chief advising him against supporting these Muslim extremists in Syria?

We are 15 years into the war on terror, and are we safer or less safe? Why? After the billions of dollars, millions of lives lost and ruined (civilians and honest servicemen doing their duty) all the freedoms and rights we've given up, how come it is never enough to keep us safe?

Is it because our leaders are saying one thing, and doing another? That they are knowingly supporting the very groups that are attacking us? Why would they do that? I know what I think, how do you explain this?

So many things don't add up.

We need a better caliber of politician, to stop this cycle of war and violence. Unfortunately as seen by the Obama presidency, citizens can vote in a dove, who turns into a hawk once in office.

Love Peace Justice.

Hi Loudmouth,

There are a lot of myths about the way things are run in Greece, and indeed the costs of railway operation in Britain, that turn out not to be based on facts at all; just idle speculation. And there also tends to be a lot of misinterpretation of statistics, such as including the cost of building new railways in the cost of operating existing ones. So I'm treating your claims with a great deal of skepticism.

To buy out Britain's train operating companies would be orders of magnitude cheaper than you think. They're all on limited term franchises, and not terribly lucrative. It's not unknown for franchisees to voluntarily end them early.

Health has been free in Britain for well over half a century. And if Corbyn makes Britain's universiities free like their European counterparts, so much the better (though I doubt it would be one of his priorities). Reclaiming the money through the tax system is a better way to do it than sending people broke with student loans.

I think your comments about padding the bureaucracy are based on a prejudice against socialists. But like nearly everyone else, they know that it's stupid to pay people to do useless things when they could instead be paid to do useful things.

The tactic of using regulations to improve rail services was a huge failure when the Blair government tried it. It ended up costing the government more, but in most cases the passengers were no better off.

BTW when spending money upgrading railways, new stock is rarely wothwhile except where there's some other reason to justify it (such as electrification of more lines).

Hi Aidan,

Thanks for all that. As an old person, and an old socialist, I certainly support free health services for everybody, but don't forget they don't drop out of the sky at the whim of a fairy godmother, they have to be paid for by the taxpayer. Health costs are one of the biggest financial costs in any ageing society, as in most of the West. Ultimately, there are no freebies.

As for bureaucrats, I recommend that you watch 'Utopia', 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, on our ABC. Watching that HR person in the last episode, I was wondering what on earth she did, what on earth quals she had: the aim seemed to be to magnify simple tasks unnecessarily. She'll do well. I suppose every class system has to find positions for the middle-classes, so why not the public bureaucracy ? And surely, in private business, most of those junior staff would be out the door ? Brilliant ! So cruel ! So spot-on !

Here's a new game: try to find the most useless, expensive and pointless projects for that Utopia team: a tunnel between Melbourne and Brisbane for a high-speed freight rail system ? A full-scale model of Sydney Harbour at Alice Springs ? Just imagine the numbers of bureaucrats those projects would need, to organise the tea-bags and biscuits, and schedule the Spanish dancing girls.

Just don't mention Adelaide's new hospital, the third most expensive in the world. For Adelaide, the 543rd largest city in the world. Maybe the Utopia team could re-locate there for a few episodes. Or an entire series.

Keep laughing, Aidan !

Joe

Candidate Corbyn's public pronouncements are a breath of fresh air not seen in Britain since the end of the world war, and the lying war criminal Tony Blair's panicked response is a ringing endorsement. British friends – some not so long ago Tory voters - have told me Corbyn's public meetings around the country are attracting standing ovations.

Corbyn has declared war on the impoverishment imposed on the many for the enrichment of the few, an impoverishment described in a breathtaking defilement of language as "austerity". On his proposal to reverse the years of privatisation he has stated that under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of plunder of public assets will be brought to an abrupt end:

“Let’s make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any assets are sold [to them] by [Tory Treasurer] Osborne under their value a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation.”

To expunge the stain of Bliar’s treason, Jeremy Corbyn will, if he becomes party leader next month, issue a public apology on behalf of Labour to the British people and the Iraqi people for the illegal aggression against Iraq in 2003. This has Bliar’s crew of bare faced liars spitting.

Meanwhile Tories are stacking the Labour Party in droves to try to prevent Corbyn becoming leader.

‘Meanwhile Tories are stacking the Labour Party in droves to try to prevent Corbyn becoming leader.’

What’s more, they are calling in all sorts of favours from the media, including and especially the traditional ‘left’ media, i.e The Guardian, to discredit Corbyn at every turn.

While there is every reason to hope, history presents a very pessimistic outcome. The powers that be have ensured that left-wing democratically elected leaders rarely ever do too well - some lose their freedom (Mossadeh, Iran), others their right to govern (Whitlam, Australia), others their ability to implement anti-poverty reforms (Chavez, Venezuela) and others their lives (Allende, Chile).

Everything is being stacked against Corbyn winning the Labour leadership – including vote rigging and pro-Corbyn voter purges – but if this does not succeed, the Blairite and conservative establishment will ensure that he will not be able to effect his role as Labour leader. Everything he does and everything he stands for will be ruthlessly demonised as Trotsykite naivety or outdated sixties idealism. If that does not succeed, I’m sure that a very manufactured juicy scandal or two will do the trick.

I’d love to be proved wrong. And I desperately hope that I am proved wrong. This is a different world from what existed in the overthrow of previous democratically elected left-wing leaders.The effects of unchecked right-wing ideology are all around us. We have an out-of-control global financial catastrophe, runaway climate change, intolerable levels of inequality and social despair, rampant greed by the 1% that even the dutiful media are unable to find excuses for, and back-to-back, expensive wars that the public neither understand nor endorse.

If Corby goes the way of Allende, Chavez, Whitlam or Mossedeh, others will fill the vacuum. This rampant global oligarchy is under threat and it will do everything in its power to remain in control. But as history has shown, if it is unwilling to compromise with the forces opposing it, then violent revolution is the only option.

Ah, the sweet sound of tumbrils in the morning.

Hi Killarney,

Isn't hyperbole fun ? -

"We have an out-of-control global financial catastrophe, runaway climate change, intolerable levels of inequality and social despair, rampant greed by the 1% that even the dutiful media are unable to find excuses for, and back-to-back, expensive wars that the public neither understand nor endorse."

But hyperbole is not evidence: just because you can ramp up the horror stories, doesn't mean that they become truer.

Or am I mistaking wishful thinking for hyperbole ? That your picture of the world, as one of devastation, chaos and misery (you could have used those words; maybe next time) is as a prelude to world-wide revolution and the Coming of World Peace and Justice, under wise and kind leaders like Corbyn.

The world certainly presents a picture of some chaos, of problems which seem to be impossible to resolve. But even with the cutting of the multitude of Gordian knots, as you hint at, what makes you think it will suddenly and magically all be sweetness and light ? All problems over ?

I remember a cartoon of a maths professor posing a massively complex problem for a student (Step 1). At Step 2, 'a miracle happens'. At Step 3, 'x = 3'. The professor says, 'Hmm, I think you may need to explain Step 2.'

My imperfect understanding of history is that massively complex problems do not have sweetly simple solutions. They never have, and never will. Even you may have to get used to that :)

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth

You've said nothing of value in your comment. All you want to do is score cheap points by resorting to ridicule. You're not even ridiculing what I DID say, just your own fanciful distortion of it.

No, Killarney, I'm trying to get through to you that the path to The Bright Future is not through either the Destruction of the Temple OR Skipping through the Meadows Arm in Arm - but sheer hard and long work, trying to do the best we can to ameliorate and improve society for as many as possible with as little misery as possible. And even then, we may not get there.

Basically, Killarney, I'm trying to save you all the useless decades of striving for something which is not only ludicrously unlikely but actually quite reactionary, necessarily involving the destruction and death of many. All Utopian ideologies have moved in that direction and yours is not likely to be any better. I hope that you understand what I'm trying to say.

Best of luck,

Joe