Environmentalist Activist groups sticking with an apolitical stance will sabotage our aims. In fact, their priority has to be democracy. (Copy)
While climate change is obviously the most important issue, I have argued for a long time (and do so with increasing concern) that, if we want to achieve those aims sooner, it has to be democracy that it is priority.
We need democracy to operate fairly, or, at least fair enough, to elect the right kind of government that will put our aims into action.
We only slow progress towards climate justice if we allow our democracy to be further demeaned by this government with the following:
Power Grabs: Withdrawal Act
Everything I would say about this here is explained in a video I really hope readers will watch:
Power Grab, Theft of Rights & Who Gets Extra Screwed
Voter Supression
As set out on page 48 of the last Conservative manifesto:
The Cummings Manifesto.
Screenshot from 2019 Tory Manifesto.
Regarding the other very concerning policies you can see in this page of the Tory Manifesto, I will make a new video.
However, in the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about threats to UK democracy and related issues there is an old one you can watch.
(It is adressed to someone called Kieth whom I was talking to at the time about working with on an idea I’m no longer pursuing. But, ignore that and all the relevant information is there.)
Page 48, The Withdrawal Act Power Grab and other threats to UK democracy.
Propaganda
They used their propaganda and brazen lies to disillusion the opposition and lower turn out.
Highly recommended reading:
Boris Johnson made politics awful then asked people to vote it away - Open Democracy
This excellent analysis from Open Democracy, an outlet that has been banned from the media lobby by this government since, explains everything. However their title sums up only one hypothesis of why their campaign of deciet and disinformation worked.
Putting aside the capability to inflict different campaigns on different individuals via social media which, insanely, is legal.
I think there are other reasons why the main campaign, disseminated via traditional media and therefore couldn’t be curated for each constituency, had such different effects on different voters.
I believe that their base were happy to vote away the ills created by the ma this set chose to vote for because their critical thinking has been corroded by the years of radicalising propaganda.
On the other had,
When to voters who opposed the Conservatives there was the disenfranchising effect mostly due to the other pillar of the campaign:
“We’re all as bad as each other”.
moral equivalence
In short, they were betting that, while both groups would be disillusioned, only one would be disenfranchised.
It was a devilishly astute and devastatingly, heartbreakingly correct calculation. And I understand how they came to this conclusion political disillusionment is like breaking somebody’s heart the more emotionally invested they are in in the relationship the more it hurts the harder it is maybe to trust again and for Conservatives and the rates they think of politics as logistics as building blocks and mechanics they don’t like to see the social issue this is why they don’t like the critical theory and identity politics but for people on the left they see that everything is political therefore the importance for them the emotional investment and lesson
. And I understand how they came to this conclusion political disillusionment is like breaking somebody’s heart the more emotionally invested they are in in the relationship the more it hurts the harder it is maybe to trust again and for Conservatives in the right they think of politics as logistics as building blocks and mechanics they don’t like to see the social issue this is why they don’t like the critical theory and your critical race theory and your identity politics but for people on the left they see that everything is political therefore the importance for them the emotional investment unless
The only time you see the same emotional investment in the right that you see on the left is on the far right generally people on the right to vote right right they are not that emotionally invested at all in politics and therefore you can break their hearts and they will come back and I’ll come back easier but if you can convince the opponents supporters that their opponent is that your opponent there you know ostensible prime minister is not to be trusted and they already think you’re shit then ideally you do exactly what happened which is get them to drop out of the running and to not cast a vote at all
regarding the state of their supporters radicalisation.
It worked.
Check the numbers.
This is, indeed, how they won.
“In 49 of the 56 seats Labour lost to the Tories, turnout was down.
... [For example] Milton Keynes North, turnout was down by 3.3%. The Conservatives got the same vote as in 2017, but their majority increased, also by 3.3%.”
So, please, do not underestimate the capability of a proficient propagandist to manipulate whole populations.
I hope that has been driven home by this point in reading but there’s more if you like:
Read another of my blog posts re: Gaslighting & Firehosing
The linked post is, by no means, an exhaustive list of the methods of population manipulation being employed by our government, something I will work on.
However it does contain a crucial warning for the opposition; one I intend to heed.
I just hope other eco-activists will heed me when I say that:
I absolutely share the view that climate change is the most important issue humans have to address.
But, as we need the right kind of government in power to have the capability to actually address it,
it’s democracy that has to be the priority.
Discuss.