Ship of Fools: Crushing the Saboteurs

Thread: Crushing the Saboteurs Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

So the Daily Mail has decided that there are saboteurs who need to be crushed and that this election is the time to do it. The Sun has come up with a variation on the same phrase (independently? seems unlikely).

Is the attempt to proclaim a spurious unity among the people and to tarnish dissent among politicians of other parties a step along the road to fascism?
Are other steps likely to be taken along that road? What can we do about it?

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

At the moment I think this is just pretty standard political language at the time of an election. I suppose what worries me is the dog whistle it gives to those who really think that politics is about the strong crushing dissent with violence.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

The Prime Minister, with a majority in the Commons, the ability to flood the Lords with amenable peers, and access to the Civil Contingencies Act which would override the lot, has said that such opposition as exists could delay her route to Brexit.

If nine Lib Dem MPs, held in utter contempt by the rest of the Commons, could in any way affect her, then something odd is happening.

The Prime Minister seems, with her friends in the Press, to be implacably hostile even to the futile expression of dissent.

I'd guess the result of the election will be roughly (it may not add up):

Con 380
Lab 170
SNP 55
Lib Dem 20
NI 18
Others 7

But what the Prime Minister will do with this I cannot guess.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

I suspect that the opposition she is really thinking about is that of hardline Brexiteers who might try to bring her down if she shows any sign of compromise.

But certainly she plays her cards close. Because of course that is not what she wants them to think. In this scenario the tabloid headlines form a fantastic smokescreen for her.

It could backfire though, if the prospective new majority is even more Brexitty than the old one...

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Interesting tidbit. Know where the word saboteur comes from? The French word for a wooden shoe is sabot. When the Industrial Revolution hit France, the saboteurs would throw their wooden shoes into the gears to stop the machinery.

Carry on.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
the oft-repeated story (as old as the record of the word in English) that the modern meaning derives from strikers' supposed tactic of throwing shoes into machinery is not supported by the etymology

(Source).

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

Anyone else here willing to admit that they first heard that one from the lips of Kim Cattrall in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country? [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think May is actually thinking of anyone who insists she explains her position, something that she seems unable to actually do.

It is a frightening headline, and not, IMO, in the usual sabre rattling. It is an indication that some people feel that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Obviously, a dictatorship that doesn't execute them.

I fully understand the desire for leading without argument or justification. But that is not the way we do it, and that is not the right way.

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:
the oft-repeated story (as old as the record of the word in English) that the modern meaning derives from strikers' supposed tactic of throwing shoes into machinery is not supported by the etymology
(Source).

What about 'clogging up the works'? Is that footwear related?

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Or would it be all the crushed saboteurs clogging up the works?
Appears they will be a lot of crushing going on with this Election. That is presuming anyone bothers to turn up to vote rather than staying at home playing candy crush.

Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :

Daily Mail has achieved what it set out to, - lots of Publicity by pressing your Red Buttons.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I suspect that the opposition she is really thinking about is that of hardline Brexiteers who might try to bring her down if she shows any sign of compromise.

I agree. It's the opposition to any hint of compromise within the Tory ranks that she's thinking of, because with such a small majority it only takes a handful of headbangers to vote against a proposal for it to fail.

Or to put it another way, it's not opposition to Brexit itself that's the problem, but opposition to her preferred form thereof.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Is the attempt to proclaim a spurious unity among the people and to tarnish dissent among politicians of other parties a step along the road to fascism?

It's the Mail, for crying out loud. Of course they want to move the country down the road towards fascism.

The question is whether anyone important actually agrees with them.

Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :

Harold Wilson said that the easiest of his Days as Prime Minister was when he had a majority of 4, because all his MPs behaved themselves. When he got much bigger Majorities then he started to get many rebellions.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is an indication that some people feel that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Obviously, a dictatorship that doesn't execute them.

I have observed many similar indications in the posts of various left-leaning Shipmates over the last few years. They generally couch it in terms of those who vote the "wrong" way being stupid or selfish rather than traitorous, but the underlying desire to silence those who disagree with their views is the same.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I have observed many similar indications in the posts of various left-leaning Shipmates over the last few years. They generally couch it in terms of those who vote the "wrong" way being stupid or selfish rather than traitorous, but the underlying desire to silence those who disagree with their views is the same.

I dislike the "punch a Nazi" and the "shout down UKIP" memes, but there is surely something different about describing someone as "traitorous" and talking about "crushing the saboteurs" - if only because the former is a legal term, implying that those who use it are suggesting someone should face a court case, whereas the latter is arguably an allusion to extra-judicial violence.

There is a general problem that the left doesn't get - in that many seem to think that tactics and language which they deem unacceptable in the mouths of Cabbage and co is perfectly acceptable when they do it, as if the words themselves don't really matter and it is only the person who says it that is objectionable.

Personally I think that the Tory policies are utterly deplorable and anyone who isn't a higher-rate taxpayer who votes for them is delusional. And UKIP are just talking shite.

But I don't think they should be "silenced" in any other way than being soundly beaten in debate and handed their arses on election day.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
Harold Wilson said that the easiest of his Days as Prime Minister was when he had a majority of 4, because all his MPs behaved themselves. When he got much bigger Majorities then he started to get many rebellions.

Yes, but autre temps and all that - when Wilson got in with a majority of 4 that was an election result - it returned Labour to power for the first time in 13 years and they were a bit shell-shocked by the fact that Alec Douglas-Home (who'd been put up as a caretaker supposed to hold the line, go down to defeat, and clear the way for Rab Butler) did better than anyone expected.

In those circs it's unsurprising that Labour behaved themselves - although, at the same time, the debates about *why* ADH had run them so close laid the foundations for the disharmony from arguably 1970 until John Smith. Wilson had won a GE, and Labour were back in power. The Tories have been in office jointly or alone for 7 years. The awkward squad are emboldened. A victory on a new manifesto would put them back in their box (is the hope).

What is more of a truism is that PM's do need some sort of personal mandate (not constitutionally but in practice) and winning a general election is the route one to achieving that

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is an indication that some people feel that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Obviously, a dictatorship that doesn't execute them.
I have observed many similar indications in the posts of various left-leaning Shipmates over the last few years. They generally couch it in terms of those who vote the "wrong" way being stupid or selfish rather than traitorous, but the underlying desire to silence those who disagree with their views is the same.

I think you'll find that there's a world of difference between individuals who refuse to put up with shit and shout it down, and those who'd use the organs of state to make dissenters disappear.

You get this on more US-orientated websites. I just refer these snowflakes to this and carry on.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Incidentally, one wonders how Ken Clarke retains the support of the Tory hierarchy given that he seems to stand full-square against the thing that May says this GE is about.

Whilst it is true that Labour is a mess, it seems also true that some of the most vocal "traitors" are on May's own benches.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

this is over-rationalising to a ridiculous extent, but I do like the idea that Alec Douglas-Home is in some respect responsible for Jeremy Corbyn being Labour leader!

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Incidentally, one wonders how Ken Clarke retains the support of the Tory hierarchy given that he seems to stand full-square against the thing that May says this GE is about.

Because he's a time-served elder-statesman, who even the headbangers revere to a surprising extent. Ken is pretty generally held in Tory circles to be "wrong on Europe, right on everything else."

Europe did for his leadership ambitions on at least 3 occasions, but it's been unthinkable since the 1980s to not have him in Cabinet/shadow Cabinet, until he eventually decided that age had caught up with him.

Basically, he gets a free pass on Europe because everyone knows where he stands.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I think you'll find that there's a world of difference between individuals who refuse to put up with shit and shout it down, and those who'd use the organs of state to make dissenters disappear.

You get this on more US-orientated websites. I just refer these snowflakes to this and carry on.

There is also this point; Trump - and increasingly it seems May - want to lead without dissent. And whilst there is little indication at the moment that May is inclined to use the machinery of the state to get her own way, it isn't much of a stretch to call this traitorous, at very least to the values upon which the state is built.

It can also be argued that pressure put on the state to prevent excesses is hardly morally the same as the excesses of the state anyway.

I don't think we're in the situation in the UK where the state is so excessive that extraordinary citizen responses are justified - but it is a closer thing in the USA IMO.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Incidentally, one wonders how Ken Clarke retains the support of the Tory hierarchy

oh, and I'd add, much as sometimes it might not look like it, that the Tory hierarchy are not the loonies. This is the mistake Tory opponents always make looking in from the outside (not all of them, obviously, but it's the mistake that is always made). Central Office is a world of planning and rationality, grafted onto a broad church coalition that is collectively the Tory Party.

The Tory hierarchy liked/like Ken because he's on top of his briefs, a good speaker, and cuts through well beyond Tory voters. Since the dawn of the polling "who'd you like to go for a pint with that you wouldn't vote for?" he's been near the top of the list.

More to the point, the hierarchy are much more like Ken than they are like IDS, for example. IDS, like Tebbit, plays to a certain part of the base, but when they accidentally re-wrote the rules such that he could actually win a leadership contest not only was he defenestrated relatively rapidly but the rules were hurriedly rewritten to stop such lunacy happening again.

There's a lesson there for Labour....

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is an indication that some people feel that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Obviously, a dictatorship that doesn't execute them.
I have observed many similar indications in the posts of various left-leaning Shipmates over the last few years. They generally couch it in terms of those who vote the "wrong" way being stupid or selfish rather than traitorous, but the underlying desire to silence those who disagree with their views is the same.

Not stupid but a desire for a greater share of the cake indicates selfishness and greed, especially when a bit more thought would show that, in the longer term, things are better for everyone if resources are spread around, so that more people can participate in the economy.

I suppose it depends on how big an underclass one wants to create.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Robotics and mechanisation will continue to reduce the need for human labour, the population will continue to rise. The so-called 'underclass' will have to be redefined by those outside of it and those inside it.
A permanent pool of people not fufilling traditional roles is a fact of modern life that isn't going away. It is a fact which all the main political Parties need to wake up to.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
I suspect that the opposition she is really thinking about is that of hardline Brexiteers who might try to bring her down if she shows any sign of compromise.
I agree. It's the opposition to any hint of compromise within the Tory ranks that she's thinking of, because with such a small majority it only takes a handful of headbangers to vote against a proposal for it to fail.

The alternative is that she actually thinks Labour represent a credible Opposition. I know she's batshit crazy, but she's not that crazy.

As always, it's nothing to do with the country as a whole, or Parliament. It's all about the internal politics of the Tory Party.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

So confident are the Tories of winning it seems they are openly talking about tax rises after the Election.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Since they're following a process that will cut billions from tax revenue and there's a limit to how much more they can cut (though, I would suggest a large portion of the defence budget in particular that earmarked to renewing an unnecessary nuclear deterrent) tax increases are the only option they have. I bet it's not the crooked bankers who get to pay though.

Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :

I know or have known lots of Politicians from all Parties, been a member of two Parties and have both stood for Election and been a Candidate. Every one has been nice to know, intelligent, lucid and well aware of Politics and Economics. In private they will admit to not being in control of circumstances, and that their Manifesto is a 'Wish List' which they try to not word in such a way as it becomes an Albatross if they get power. 'Off the Record' many express opinions that bear no relation to their Party's official line.

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