Notices by Lydia Conwell :mastodon: (lydiaconwell@todon.nl)

I'm not sure how I feel about this article on left wing strategy. It just feels to me aimless, with the left being divided and weakened for it.

The thing is, while there will always be divisions, I think the left probably can built a movement with some kind of consensus over most issues. There will always be some conflicting political beliefs, some that can never be reconciled, but I don't think a popular movement automatically has to become tepid and watered down.

I'm also not big on the idea 'no cuts' is the best kind of slogan. I think what is needed is a movement that asserts solutions. Reform's popularity is based on them offering solutions. I think a strong left movement will be the one that tells people 'we know how to fix this'.

The left has a PR problem in my opinion. I think they need to ditch talk of Marxism and workers in favour of a campaign that makes all working people realise they are part of the same struggle.

I think probably appealing to a more middle class demographic would be the key to that. And the left need to stop relying on corporate own media, including social media. Corporate news always misrepresents the left, and I think the left are often trying to fit in to what those outlets want to hear. ...

https://www.counterfire.org/article/on-strategy-how-do-we-stop-starmer/

Speaking of strategies for the left:

I saw a video of a protest at a talk for new students at Glasgow university. Some pro-Palestine, pro-#BDS protesters walked in chanting and holding up a banner and most of the potential future students just sat there looking blank.

Then when the protesters started handing out leaflets some people didn't take them. The video ended then so it wasn't revealed how many people took the leaflets.

But this is a problem I think the left has. When people protest, observers might see the propaganda taking place and either say "Fuck you! Don't tell me what to think!" or might go "Well, I don't know so I'll stay neutral."

And it's like when you say to people you've deleted your WhatsApp. They just think "But I need WhatsApp to communicate with ..." and the notion ends there.

This is one of the key things the left has to overcome in my opinion.

It's about persuading and selling the ideas without eliciting hatred or revulsion, and making people feel they are not be propagandised, that they are choosing to support left politics.

The clue is in X's name.

It's telling its users to click on the little X at the top right of the window.

We interrupt this broadcast because the cat is begging for food.

@aral All the main parties are funded by big corporations. It's they who the parties work for. The differences in the parties are just like different brands of the same product in my opinion, promising different things but basically doing the same thing.

Foreign policy does not change regardless of which party is in power.

We need to get corporate influence out of politics.

I'm re-reading 1984 and it feels very relevant to now. Orwell's #book isn't really #scifi, it's really a book about oppression and propaganda.

I'll do a blog on it I think. There are things to say about it.

There are socialists who say Orwell wasn't really a socialist, and they are probably right, but what Orwell gets so very right is how censorship works. By removing references to better things, people have no means to criticise current things. You can't say the current government is bad if you have no proof things were ever better.

As Orwell says: Who controls the past controls the future.

#propaganda #censorship

That's not to say things were ever 'good', but just that as things get worse, without history to make comparisons, you don't know how worse they are getting.

Or that things could be better.

I notice the bots that automatically boost posts don't get when a hashtag is used ironically.

I know that people have shitty political views and willingly vote for right wing scumbags, but you do have to bear in mind their lifelong exposure to corporate media narratives.

People are overworked, distracted by BS celebrity culture and often aren't politically engaged. Often the only cues for who to vote for come from a few newspaper headlines and the tone of voice on a TV news broadcast.

I know a person who reads a few different newspapers and he's still wrong!

Corporate media isn't there to inform, it's there to sell a corporate friendly product. That's why they rarely give context. If you listen to a TV news story you know nothing about, how much do you come away with a sense you understand that situation?

As Jonathan Cook wrote recently "This documentary ... excels at offering a detailed examination of tree bark without ever stepping back far enough to see the shape of the forest."

This is how I see all TV news. The key to a better future is through an independent, non-corporate reporting of news.

Disinformation is deliberate, misinformation is unintentional.

But there are some folk on Fedi who aren't even misinformed, they just make shit up without bothering to be informed.

It's kind of ignoraformation.

You know, I think we should have Votes For Kitties!

#VotesForKitties

The correct way to pronounce it is:

The United States of American't

@GreenSkyOverMe And that's the opening sequence of your psychological thriller.

Who had Andrew Lloyd Weber on their bingo card?

#totp

Isaac Asimov critiques Orwell's 1984.

It's an interesting read because it's a critique of a writer by a writer, so there's a lot of picking apart how the 1984 world would (or wouldn't) work.

And he needs a hero. Asimov hates the lack of heroes in 1984, which I kinda liked.

He also rightly points out that the state surveillance wouldn't work without robots or computers. And there are some interesting points made of Orwell's colonial leanings.

I think Asimov is a touch too hard on the book, yet his criticisms seem quite valid. It goes to show that a writer can sort of get it wrong, yet end up creating something that kinda gets it right, and inspires people for generations in a slightly different way.

Another thing I think Asimov misses is the culture of propaganda, an area Orwell worked in. I think the book is good at propaganda techniques.

What's also interesting is that some of the things Asimov is dismissing in 1980, when he wrote the critique, seem very accurate descriptions of the present. So maybe Orwell did get it right?

But I agree that I don't think Orwell was a prescient genius. I think he just happened to write something engaging and meaningful whilst bitching about the Soviet Union.

https://redsails.org/asimov-on-1984/

#Orwell #Asimov #1984 #Writing #Writers

This is an interesting section from the essay. Remind you of any politician?:

"As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required.

It is only necessary to make a statement — any statement — forcefully enough to have an audience believe it. No one will check the lie against the facts, and, if they do, they will disbelieve the facts. Do you think the German people in 1939 pretended that the Poles had attacked them and started World War II? No! Since they were told that was so, they believed it as seriously as you and I believe that they attacked the Poles."

Since posting things online is an entirely useless and ineffective form of activism, when you post such a statement, it has absolutely no effect on me.

And I don't even get to see your words of wisdom either, so I don't even get to know such a theory, because posting online is worthless.

To make sure I know how useless keyboard activism is, you have to meet me in person in real life and scream it into my face. Only then I will receive the message and be able to act upon it.

So until then ... I'll be waiting.

"Posting online is worthless activism!"

Says, person online.

@aral The guy now revealing the gun now is merely revealing the paradigm that has existed since the end of WW2, just perhaps Europe thought they were willing participating in it.

Messing around with book cover designs and it's interesting how much fonts create a particular impression merely by how they are designed.

Some seem comical, some overly formal, some boring, some seem comical because they are overly formal, and some are formal with a hint of playfulness.

All of this is implied however. They're just letters at the end of the day.