Shout louder, Labour – your voice should be heard from Space!
From julijuxtaposed

Your voice is a squeak.

Do you seriously think it’s acceptable for people to wait for you to get back into power, make some policies and battle it out at leisure in Parliament? What do you think will happen over two more years of division and degradation under this Coalition to vulnerable people whose advocacy you’re neglecting? What do you suppose happens to Society and Community while you faff – suspended animation?

You may not want to show your hand too soon with specific policies. I understand that argument but that is no excuse for your dire lack of gumption when it comes to challenging the Coalition on theirs, whether through the Houses of Parliament, the Press or Television. We knew they were ideologically callous nonsense; we knew how divisive they would become; and we knew from the last Tory Administration that they would also be false economies. So, why didn’t you? We’ve been shouting for half a Parliamentary Term, now. You’ve had plenty of opportunities and you have mostly squandered them.

Really… where the hell are you? Sitting around tables, reading the Daily Mail, panicking over how to use Right-wing thinking as the foundation of your own policies because you might lose votes if you don’t? You won’t win mine if you do. You should be refuting and shaming the Coalition’s reasoning behind their twisted, all-for-one principles at every opportunity – you will find easy pickings. It’s really not difficult unless, of course, you still subscribe to the Blatcherite view that got us into this state. Neoliberalism is uncivilised and, if your recent years in office haven’t taught you that much, then you don’t deserve to even be in Opposition. If you can’t oppose adequately, where on Earth do you think faith in your governance will come from?

You’ve also been ominously reticent in championing our righteous indignation over governmental and corporate surveillance. When you finally do squeak, it’s mostly out of concern for technicalities. Again, try addressing the reasons upon which all this monitoring is grounded and ‘legality’ and ‘security’ become political smokescreens for true motivations: power and control over others. This is obviously a difficult thing for you, given that you, too, must claim a huge heap of domestic paranoia and imperialistic foreign policy.

Aside from the fact that you seem unable to fully appreciate how irrevocably Blair changed the world for the worse with his neo-con Iraq escapade, have you forgotten such things as 92 days, ID cards, extraordinary rendition? We haven’t. Have you any intention of addressing your own oppressive nature? And what about the pathetically abusive relationship we seem to have with the US? We don’t appreciate it any more than your neoliberal sycophancy, you know.

So, have you got any plans for any more overseas adventures? Military sojourns, perhaps? Is preserving the cyber-military-industrial-complex still a priority for you, too?

Is your relationship with The City one of fear or love; blackmail or accord?

And how do you feel about parasitical corporatised agribusiness and the likes of Monsanto and Big Pharma? Have you also bought into their superficial sustenance as a way to feed and treat the world? How serious are you about an ethically sustainable world? Do you understand that that requires fair treatment of other countries as much as it does at home? Do you believe in land and resource grabbing or free trade and respectful relationships; nation ‘charity’ or self-sufficiency?

Do you think your own economic past and future are your only problem amongst the electorate? Think again.

You like to say you’ve learned from your years under Blair and Brown but you don’t show it.

Get a grip. Decide who you are and what you are for. Decide what sort of a country and People you want Britain to really be. Speak from principles and logic. Instead of ideology, try idealism and then transform it into common sense action. And stop fussing about members and votes until you can actually persuade us why we should bother. Try replacing desperate careerism with good old-fashioned altruistic service. If you act with integrity, speak truth to power, show understanding of the connectedness of our problems and true wisdom in their solutions, why, we may vote in our droves. Not just because we think you are slightly less evil than the Conservatives but because we have been offered a positive and meaningful way forward.

Be the beacon we need.
PS Get rid of Liam Byrne