John Lydon on Russell Brand's call for revolution: 'The most idiotic thing I've ever heard'

[flamingdem]

* Video at link

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2014/oct/15/john-lydon-russell-brand-revolution-video?CMP=share_btn_fb

Former Sex Pistol John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, tells Polly Toynbee that comedian Russell Brand's call for people not to vote is ignorant, flippant and liable to 'make you all homeless'. Lydon also explains why he'd never vote Conservative, labels Ukip 'morons' and calls anarchy a 'mind game for the middle classes'

[Scootaloo]

1. Dude's still alive?

I guess old punks never die, we just get funky

of course he's also on record pointing out that both sides of government are so wrapped up in finance and banking that it really doesn't matter who holds the govenrment - you get the same policy either way.

Which seems to be a common dichotomy. People who realize and admit there's no actual reason to vote, telling people to go vote anyway. because... participation awards, I guess?


The most value you get out of voting these days, right there.

[flamingdem]

2. For me voting represents my health

Plus, half a chance for the environment.

So, survival for me, physical and financial, and survival of the species long term.

Damn right it matters!

[Scootaloo]

5. Then you must vote the hell out of some third parties and write-ins

Good for you, vote how you like. The democrats give you oligarchy. The republicans give you oligarchy.

The former Sex Pistols frontman said he was against a parliamentary inquiry into the industry - comparing the situation to stealing a car.
Appearing as a panellist on last night's BBC1 show, he said: "How on earth is Parliament going to discuss this really when both sides, left and right, are connected to this?
"This doesn't just go back to Brown, this is part of the ongoing problem. Mr Diamond comes from Wall Street...hello.
"Both parties love this idea. They are fiddling with rates. They are affecting the world and everything we used to count on as being dependable and accurate is being discussed by these argumentative chaps.
"If I nick a motor I'm going to be up before the judge, the rozzers. Hello, same thing."

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/anarchy-at-the-bbc-as-former-sex-pistol-johnny-lydon-appears-on-question-time-26872789.html

Voting only matters, if there are useful choices on the ballots. This election has showcased this - liberal issues, put out individually, won handily. Democratic politicians, who cannot be considered reliable on furthering liberal issues, did not.

[geek tragedy]

3. Kris Kobach and Kim Jong Un agree with your disparagement of voting.

John Lewis doesn't.

At least you have the former Mr. Katy Perry in your corner too.

[Scootaloo]

4. It's not the voting I disparage

It's the non-options on the ballots. Democrats win, we get neoliberalism. Republicans win, we get neoliberalism.

Doesn't this strike anyone else as a fundamental problem?

[geek tragedy]

6. Medicaid expansion was neoliberalism?

Please spare me the Bush=Gore nonsense. It hasn't gotten any less stupid over the past 14 years.

The problem is that Americans have a cultural hatred of the government. That inevitably leads to bad policy making.

[Scootaloo]

7. Did any candidates run on Medicaid expanion?

Or did they run away from it?

If you can't count on the Democratic party to stand by the biggest achievement the party has made in thirty motherfucking years, what can you count on them for?

Funny you bring up Bush and Gore. See, that was my first election (sort of, i wasn't eligible to vote, having a late december birthday and all) and i have the ability to take off the rose-colored glasses and remember. See, that election season is deeply colored through hindsight. But at the time? Gore was busting his ass to divorce himself from the democrats. To paint himself as a moderate centrist. He was doing everything he could to play catch-up with Bush, to play conservative footsie. Even embraced that right-wing shitheap Joe Lieberman as his running mate, a decision almost as mind-boggling as McCain's pick for VP eight years later. "Bush = Gore" might not have been accurate, but it was certainly fair at the time, given the sort of campaign Gore was running.

And here we are. Fourteen years later. More Democrats running as if they were republicans, making mad leaps away from the most popular president in decades, turning away from the most popular piece of legislation since the New Deal... and losing. And then blaming the voters for it. As if they are owed our votes unconditionally.

yes, Americans have a weird obsessive hatred of the government. We agree there. The problem is that the Democratic party embraces it and spends all its time playing according to the republican's arguments and memes. And with that coms the neoliberalism. The Democrats pad it out with some platitudes about social policy, but it's still there.

[geek tragedy]

8. Mark Pryor ran on Medicaid expansion.

The ingrates threw him out because he wasn't a wingnut, and that's how they roll.