Saturday, May 13, 2017

A socialist on the BBC Daily Politics show

5 comments:

mark bem said...

I watched this clip with interest, but I am left with more questions than answers.
What does it tell us about the mainstream media when, faced with radical ideas, the presenter is amazed and the pundits attempt to explain away your spokesperson's suggestion that we don't need bosses and business owners?
Is socialism a great idea that most people haven't considered because the mainstream media don't want to give it air time? Or, have we as a society discounted Socialism as a terrible idea based on misunderstanding of how it would work?
I don't know if this will convince people that Socialism would work or not.

ajohnstone said...

Although the ideas involved in socialism are fairly simple and straight forward, they nevertheless go against accepted wisdom and therefore requires much more discussion and debate than any 5-minute segment. All we can do is stimulate curiosity for viewers to follow up and investigate on their own.

It is why the link is important.
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

I don't think there is a topic or event that has not been written about on this website

Matthew Culbert said...

"I don't know if this will convince people that Socialism would work or not."

In and of itself, it was only seven minutes compared to a never ending onslaught of pro-capitalism,so perhaps not. We have already had some people get in touch with us though for more information about socialism.But your points are all valid ones.

mark bem said...

Thanks for the comments and the agree that Socialism is a simple idea, but bringing about Socialism takes a great deal of work.
I would like to see more discussion in the mainstream media, but maybe that is not a priority when social media is more accommodating to different ideas. There are positives and negatives to virtual world organising though. I will check out the web site; thanks.
Just as a matter of interest, this General election, should Labour lose, is going to make it very difficult for far left groups in Britain to grow. What are your thoughts please.

ajohnstone said...

It may be a bit mean but perhaps we may well experience some feelings of schadenfreude.

After all the Left and the Labour Party have never really made our task of persuading and convincing folk of the merits of the socialist idea particularly easy with their misrepresentation and confusion.

Would a Corbyn government make it any easier? I'm not so sure it would. In fact, experience says it could make it even harder to dispel the belief that Labour and the Left = socialism