Share this page!

Ian Welsh Profile picture
Twitter logo
18 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Corbyn thought he could make peace with his enemies, so he didn't re-select or remove the whip from anyone. Now his enemies, in power, are not making his mistake. The Left and Corbyn were only acceptable when they weren't a threat.
In a way I'm glad centrists are being so vindictive to Corbyn and I almost hope they drive other leftists out of the party. The route forward in Britain is to leave Labour and start a new party. Yeah, the Tories will win for a while, so be it.

No peace with enemies.
get the unions to leave Labour, back the new party. Labour cannot win without unions and left wingers. That will suck for a while but it is the strategy that allows an actual left wing party again, and that left stands a good chance of supplanting Labour.
It is NEVER a good time to start a new party in a first past the post system. It wasn't a good time when Labour was started, for that matter. But if you never do it, you're looking at not another 10 years of Tories, but 50 of Tories and shitLibs.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Ian Welsh

Ian Welsh Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @iwelsh

Ian Welsh Profile picture
20 Nov
I'll tell you a secret as someone who worked on paper and computers, being there for the transition: in most cases computers make business processes slower. A lot slower. Old mainframe processes were also faster than micro processes.

In auditing I found the difference about 4X.
A search function is only good if you know what you're looking for, exactly, for example. It was far faster to scan old paper files in audits.

Computers were generally used for control, to make workers take all sorts of steps. The slow downs were massive.
emails allowed for far more interruptions of work, you had to check them and respond. Before that it was just phones (which also sucked, especially VM, but the volume was much less.)
Read 10 tweets
Ian Welsh Profile picture
19 Nov
I think, for politics/economics, it's simpler to delineate the characteristics of a healthy society and then say "if not this, then it's unhealthy."

This actually leaves a lot of room for variation, rather than being very limited, it just absolutely doesn't allow certain things.
for example, you cannot have a healthy society with high levels of inequality or with an elite who does not experience the consequences of their decisions.
the money creation function cannot be in private hands (as it is now, yes, almost all money is created by entities other than central banks (the Fed is somewhat private, though, remember.)
Read 5 tweets
Ian Welsh Profile picture
17 Nov
Banning a company from your country is one thing, destroying it at home, another:

androidauthority.com/huawei-sells-h…
both sides are hurtling towards a new cold war. The Chinese are convinced America will do anything to keep them from technological equality, the Americans that the Chinese are a bunch of bullying cheats.
The constant use of sanctions against everyone Americans hate today (Biden presumably will reverse Iran sanctions) has spread fear and is causing China, Russia and allies to do everything they can to create a separate monetary, financial and technological system.
Read 4 tweets
Ian Welsh Profile picture
17 Nov
Folks, I like a real intellectual as much as the rest of you. But people like Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize) and Francis Fukuyama (End of History) are who were pushed as the great intellectuals of the neoliberal era.
I mean, "history is over" is about as stupid as you can get. "Corporations only responsibility is to shareholders" is also as stupid as you can get (and it didn't even work out that way, it worked out as a way for execs to overpay themselves with stock options.)
meanwhile, like it or not, every management consultant coming in and saying "you have to downsize and offshore" was working off material created by people like Milton Friedman and all the "globalization is inevitable, not a policy choice" economists.
Read 8 tweets
Ian Welsh Profile picture
20 Aug
Obama was a piece of shit. He immunized rich people stealing people's houses, increased drone murders 3X, vastly deliberately increased fracking & turned Libya into a place with slave markets.

And those are just a few of the shit things he did.
Obama was also worse on whistleblowers than Bush II, by the way.

He really was walking human garbage and did vast harm. People who think otherwise are either clueless or garbage human beings themselves.

You have terrible leaders in part because you lie to yourselves about them.
I'm too old for this shit, and I already burned my bridges, then dropped nukes on them (that was foolish of me, honestly, but it's done, so fuck it.)

So, no, I'm not going to pretend that people like Obama and Clinton are anything better than war criminals.
Read 11 tweets
Ian Welsh Profile picture
15 Jun
The simplest thing you MUST understand about the US, Britain, France and so on is that if you aren't in the top 2-3%, your leaders hate you and have nothing but contempt for you. They think you're worthless, replaceable eaters who don't understand how the world works.
Elites want you poor, because if you're poor you have less power. They think that they deserve their money and power and if you deserved any money or power you'd have it.

It's not just that they don't care about you, it's that they actively despise you and want you hurt.
this probably seems like hyperbole or exaggeration for affect.

I assure you I mean it as neither. I've spent 30 years of my life studying how our systems work. I didn't start thinking elites were evil, I resisted the conclusion.
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @iwelsh