Paul Krugman: Labour's Dead Center

[T_i_B]

Good article about the collapse of the moderate left in the UK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/opinion/paul-krugman-labours-dead-center.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time leftist dissident, has won a stunning victory in the contest for leadership of Britain’s Labour Party. Political pundits say that this means doom for Labour’s electoral prospects; they could be right, although I’m not the only person wondering why commentators who completely failed to predict the Corbyn phenomenon have so much confidence in their analyses of what it means.

But I won’t try to get into that game. What I want to do instead is talk about one crucial piece of background to the Corbyn surge — the implosion of Labour’s moderates. On economic policy, in particular, the striking thing about the leadership contest was that every candidate other than Mr. Corbyn essentially supported the Conservative government’s austerity policies.

Worse, they all implicitly accepted the bogus justification for those policies, in effect pleading guilty to policy crimes that Labour did not, in fact, commit. If you want a U.S. analogy, it’s as if all the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2004 had gone around declaring, “We were weak on national security, and 9/11 was our fault.” Would we have been surprised if Democratic primary voters had turned to a candidate who rejected that canard, whatever other views he or she held?

Beyond that, however, Labour’s political establishment seems to lack all conviction, for reasons I don’t fully understand. And this means that the Corbyn upset isn’t about a sudden left turn on the part of Labour supporters. It’s mainly about the strange, sad moral and intellectual collapse of Labour moderates.

[fasttense]

1. There is no moderation anymore

The earth is slowly becoming uninhabitable because a few very rich men want to get richer. The US supposed liberal president is pushing a fascist treaty for America that will turn over even more wealth and power to the same rich men who are killing the planet. And that is the supposed moderate stance.

Ask Obama and he will tell you he is a democrtic president who thinks he's more like an old style RepubliCON. He's no leftist, he's no revolutionary. He's a moderate. And the moderates are the ones pushing austerity, neoliberal, trickle down, capitalist destruction. If we keep the course set out by moderates like Obama and the current British Labour party we will all end up poor and suffering on a lifeless planet. That is the course set out by our moderates. It's now very conservative and radical to be a moderate because you have to close your eyes to so much reality.

[djean111]

2. Reminds me of the Third Way -

On economic policy, in particular, the striking thing about the leadership contest was that every candidate other than Mr. Corbyn essentially supported the Conservative government’s austerity policies.

[T_i_B]

4. That's because it is "3rd way"

Jeremy Corbyn's opponents all advocated 3rd way triangulation politics, which people have increasingly become tired of.

[bemildred]

5. +1. nt

[CTyankee]

3. I am always eager to read Dr. K to get the real truth...and he didn't fail today!

[PATRICK]

6. Labor in the US

has not been too different. The two stolen presidential elections and some midterms saw them accepting a lot of the lying memes about the voters and polls rather than question the process and the media. Much of leadership even when it was starting to get tough about contracts and negotiations and union building still accept the meme about the extreme left and right, the changing times, the need to find support in both parties. It took absolute beating over the head to finally to leadership to admit that anyone voting GOP is simply voting for the destruction of their entire way of life. Still, a chunk of the membership is obsessed with "Reagan Dem" idiocy(based on playing the stock market with their thrift plans) or moral sidetracking, lunatic Fox things, even past military indoctrination into being just pro-GOP anti-Dem.

Political pragmatism? Duped loyalty to the system? General public brainwashing? Generally tied to the failing money system(as are many lefty political parties)? Too poor or too rich to want to- or be able to- fight? The richer and more established the longer the fall back to the mad dog fighting spirit it takes to combat persistent evil- over which there has been no absolute victory yet. Just another inner wall of delusions to scale which we become too tired or too satisfied to do.