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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLooks like Tony Blair doesn't think much of Bernie Sanders either
From an article by Tony Blair bashing Jeremy Corbyn, frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/29/tony-blair-labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn
The Corbyn thing is part of a trend. So Donald Trump leads the field of Republican candidates with thousands at his meetings, despite remarks about women and Mexicans that you might think would be a disqualification in a nation where half the voters are women and Latinos, the fastest growing group of voters.
Bernie Sanders is wowing the Democrats on a platform that wouldnt carry more than a handful of states. The SNP win a landslide in Scotland after the collapse of the oil price means that the course they advised the Scottish people to take last year would have landed the country in the economic trauma unit.
There is a politics of parallel reality going on, in which reason is an irritation, evidence a distraction, emotional impact is king and the only thing that counts is feeling good about it all.
LuvNewcastle
(16,844 posts)in with Trump and the rest of the circus out there. If you genuinely want a change and you're voting for a candidate who will actually do what he says, you're living in an alternate reality and you shouldn't be taken seriously. Of course Tony Blair, the closet Tory, would say some shit like that. He's Britain's Bill Clinton. Blair is wealthy now, and he's happy with the way things are.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)And much of this in my opinion, is due to the dogmatic adherence of the Labour party to Blairite "triangulation" strategy. It's left Labour dominated by career politicians people can't warm to, and without anything positive to say about itself.
Hence people are looking to Corbyn over the 3 Blairite candidates, because Labour needs to change.
LuvNewcastle
(16,844 posts)of the Clintons. That's just how they roll. One of Bill Clinton's teachers at Georgetown told him that we should keep the parties the same, because that way, when the people get mad at one party and move to the other, nothing will change. I can't think of the teacher's name now, but he had a profound influence on Bill. I wonder if these leaders we have are all told the same things about how to rule, whether they're at Georgetown or Oxford. It's really something to me that Blair and Clinton are so similar. There must be some common influence. The teacher's name was Carroll Quigley -- I just remembered.
The Blairites and their insidious Third Way project have alienated so many Labour supporters - even moderate and pragmatic ones like me.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)Even though Corbyn has many policies that I don't like from rail renationalisation to his views on Ukraine, I can see clearly why he's proving more attractive to people then the likes of Liz Kendall, who only seem interested in grabbing power for themselves without offering much in return.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)Not being liked by Tony Blair is a badge of honor. Being liked by Tony Blair is decidedly not.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)malaise
(268,968 posts)in a cell with Bush, the war criminal of a Dick and others
Who the fuck gives a damn about his thoughts on anything?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)randys1
(16,286 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)The rich and powerful, entrenched crowd is getting nervous that someone might rock their compfy boat.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)Blair, along with the Clintons, their allies and supporters, belongs to a cadre of reactionary center-rightists incubated in a post-Reagan and post-Thatcher world to believe that capitulation to conservative, corporatist policy agendas while mouthing moderate platitudes makes them progressive. It does not. They're not really Labour or Democrats...they're just displaced slightly-less-Republican/Conservative Republicans/Conservatives.
People like Blair and the Clintons will never understand the Corbyns and Sanders or their ascendancy because they do not have the insight to realize that they are actually the enemy of progressive ideals fighting to hold back actual champions of actual progressive policies motivated by actual progressive values backing-up those platitudes the reactionary center-rightists have been mouthing for 30-something years.
They all belong in the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, they also lack the insight to realize that they need to stay in that dustbin and stop thinking they have relevancy in increasingly-progressive societies that have moved on from their worldview. (See: Why the Clintons won't do us all a favor and go the f**k away forever.)
Failing that, they are going to need to be crushed out and expelled, driven back into the moderate-Conservative/Republican abyss that spawned them; have their non-relevance shoved in their faces and be shown the door. Fake progressives are no longer welcome...there may have been a time when they were needed to shield the center-left and left from the RW values assault of the 1980s and 1990s...but if there ever existed a time for the likes of the Clintons and Blairs, it's certainly past not present.
The present is the clash of civilizations between these reactionary-to-Thatcher/Reagan center-rightists and progressives...but there is little doubt that the future belongs to those aligned with Corbyn and Sanders. Even a victory of the Blair-aligned Labourists or Hillary Clinton is but a short reprieve in the march of history to bury them and all they stand for. It's a last spasm before the death-knell.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)The Labour party is in open civil war right now and if we're honest, not likely to get into power for a while. If the Blairites lose control of Labour there is a definite possibility of another split, as happened in the early 80's when some on Labour's right wing broke away to form the SDP.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Truth and nothing but.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)He sounds petulant and disoriented and yet convinced he is right.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Thanks for pointing that out.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)Even if that view of Blair isn't shared with quite so much enthusiasm by others.
Javaman
(62,521 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)malaise
(268,968 posts):eivlgrin:
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)pretty.much.anything.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)He was wrong when he was bushie's lapdog and he is wrong now.
frylock
(34,825 posts)onecaliberal
(32,852 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and drags his ass across the rug.
And nobody cared.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I'm shocked. Shocked!
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)Are you sure it's not Hillary Clinton's husband you're thinking of?
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)It paid off handsomely.
Doesn't make him any less of a war criminal than the Failure Fuhrer.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)So much "reason" and "evidence" on display from your tenure at that.
malaise
(268,968 posts)New emails released from Hillary Clintons private account show that Cherie Blair lobbied the US secretary of state on behalf of the crown prince of Qatar, writing: As you know I have good links to the Qataris.
In a 2010 email marked confidential, Blair sought to arrange a meeting between Clinton and Qatars young crown prince, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
Blair has previously denied she acted as a lobbyist for the crown princes mother. In a letter to the Guardian in July, she described the claim as sensationalist and inaccurate. It emerged that Blair had brokered a woman to woman meeting between Clinton and Sheikha Mozah, the crown princes mother.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/01/hillary-clinton-emails-cherie-blair-lobbied-qatari-royal-family
suffragette
(12,232 posts)They have their own global club, don't they?
malaise
(268,968 posts)was in today's Guardian.
Response to T_i_B (Original post)
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