So the EU Parliament elections are approaching (4th of June). I was a little concerned by the number of right-wing anti-EU parties standing in the south-west region; at the very least, there are five (BNP, English Democrats, No2EU, Libertas, UKIP). That’s not counting the Tories, an independent whose policies I don’t know, various other obscure parties whose policies I’m not sure on, and ‘the Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship”’, (and yes, the quote is part of the name, just like Libertas are apparently officially “Pro Democracy: Libertas.eu”, meaning they obviously have a very different idea of what “democracy” means).

The wingnuts aren’t really a concern, though, since there’s only so many right-wing loonies who can vote for them; all it’s going to do is split the vote. What I’d like to know is why are there so many different small parties all with the same goal? Do they not realise they’re shooting themselves in the foot, competing with people who have ostensibly the same goals? Are right-wing loonies particularly prone to disagreeing with other right-wing loonies to the extent that they go and form their own political party, with hookers and blackjack? Certainly there don’t seem to be any redundant parties other than the right-wing anti-EU types.

There are a couple of other parties that caught my attention. Firstly, “WAI D”, who say that ‘The name “Wai D” stands for Your Decision. (YD)’. They appear to be trying to introduce direct democracy single-handedly, by setting up “an internet site where citizens will have the chance to express, at any moment, during the entire legislative process, their own opinions”. They also claim that the entire party is run “money-free”, apparently appearing to believe that it is some heinous crime for a government to actually spend money.

The “Fair Pay Fair Trade” party are also interesting; they appear to mean well, but they have some truly hilarious policies, like establishing a single world currency, free passenger rail transport throughout Europe, abolishing “most” prisons, and phasing out private vehicles and lorries. Not that I don’t think there should be more and cheaper rail transport, less road traffic, more cycle traffic, and so on, but I doubt it’s as simple as they seem to think. Their policy on water shortages, especially, concerns me: “The EU will ban the vast bulk of imported fruit and vegetables from countries with water shortages.” — thus bringing about the economic collapse of every one of those countries, as a major source of their income disappears? Maybe not, but I really don’t think it’s as simple as they appear to believe.

I got bored before looking up most of the rest. Mebyon Kernow I already know about, but I don’t believe their specific goals are more useful than, say, the Green Party’s (they appear to be basically a watered-down version of the Greens or Lib Dems, vaguely liberal/leftish leaning, with the specific additional goal of greater self-determination for Cornwall). The Jury Team and Pensioners’ Party I just couldn’t be bothered with. The Socialist Labour Party, again, I already knew of, and likewise (obviously) Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Tory scum.

Finally, the Green Party, whom I’m planning to vote for, since they have pretty sensible policies all-round, including things like abolishing the constitutional role of the monarchy and replacing the House of Lords with an elected body, and nationalising the rail network.

Update: the People’s Republic of South Devon linked to this post.

Congratulations, US voters, on not fucking up for a third time in a row (unless you voted Gore/Kerry the last two times, in which case congratulations on your fellow citizens getting a clue).

Though, seriously, California — how can you elect Obama by a 20% margin and still fuck up by passing Proposition 8? Seriously, were all of you who voted for both Obama and Prop 8 asleep or something?

Finally able to respect the US government. Hopefully it’s not too late to fix California.

And good luck, (soon-to-be) President Obama.

I’m a little amazed that, after eight years of Bush, there’s actually the possibility that the USA will have a presidential candidate who doesn’t suck. I’m still not convinced that Obama would be a better president than Clinton, but either one of them is fine by me (or, even better, either one of them with the other as vice-president).

So this year I actually remembered to register to vote in the local election, not that it did any good; we didn’t have much in the way of canvassing, leaflets, etc. I ended up voting for the Greens on principle, but Labour got in anyway — better than the Tories, at least, though Plymouth council overall is a Tory majority by about 5 people. I had a look at the results for Sunderland, but couldn’t work out which ward was which since they were reorganised a few years back. I have a feeling it’s the one with Margaret Thatcher^WForbes as councillor now, though. I’m thinking about going along to the Green Party meeting next week, assuming I can work out where it is (the website hasn’t been updated for May’s meeting yet…).

Unfortunately, professional twerp and congenital Tory Boris Johnson is now Mayor of London; the fact that he’s a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot appears to have been ignored; indeed, some people seem to think that he’s a "great politician".

So, I haven’t really been following the US presidency stuff, but I got into a discussion the other night, so decided to learn more about the candidates; specifically, about Ron Paul, whose policies I’d heard were somewhat unrealistic but who the guy I was talking to described as "more than usually clueful, for a Republican".

Firstly, he’s a libertarian. What this seems to equate to is "let everyone do what they like with no state intervention, and rely on the kindness inherent in human beings to stop rich people screwing over poor people". Needless to say, I, as a committed pinko lefty, think that this is a load of bollocks, and if I need to explain why you probably shouldn’t even bother reading this. Various of his policies show similar, typically-libertarian lack of clue, like his belief is free-market environmentalism (i.e., "if corporations own lots of land they won’t want to pollute it", as far as I can tell, and maybe also "if corporations pollute other peoples’ land, they’ll get sued for it"), and his advocacy against federal management of healthcare—because again, it’ll obviously be in the best interests of the rich people owning the hospitals to provide free healthcare for those who can’t afford it otherwise. Seriously: the healthcare system in the US is bad enough as it is, without buggering it up even more. If nothing else is nationalised, healthcare should be.

Secondly, he’s anti-abortion. Not only does this mean I’d never even consider voting for him if I was actually an American citizen, but in his case it utterly confuses me—a supposed libertarian who’s in favour of reducing individual freedoms? Yeah, that makes sense. Not only that, but as a qualified doctor (and, in fact, obstetrician), he shows astonishing lack of clue when he claims that "life begins at conception". Oh, wait, it’s okay, because he thinks it should be handled at the state level, not the federal level. That makes it okay.

I do respect his stand on civil liberties issues—I’d expect nothing less of a libertarian, in fact, though there do seem to be some oversights, like his opposition to abortion and his voting against adoption rights for unmarried/same-sex couples.

Anyway. On to the other candidates

Huckabee should not be allowed to be president. He should not be allowed out in public, let alone allowed to hold public office. The man is a possibly-dangerous psychotic, and should be locked up. Religion has no place in government, and nobody who thinks that it’d be okay—even advisable—to "amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view" should be allowed to run a country. Also, he should take more care with his grammar. Seriously, though, if anyone could be worse than Bush, it’s Huckabee—he’s homophobic, he’s racist, he’s a creationist, he’s in favour of the death penalty and against gun control. If he’s elected, I’m finding a place as far as possible from the US and any of its likely targets, and avoiding civilisation for 4-8 years.

Clinton and Obama present a problem; they’re both good candidates in that I think it’d be a good idea for the USA to have a black president or a woman president, and it’s a shame that currently they’re forced to compete against each other rather than against the real problem, the extreme conservatives among the Republican party. It’s also been mentioned that Obama seems to be sneaking sexist comments about Clinton into speeches, and Clinton seems to do the same with racist comments about Obama—it’s a shame that they can’t rise above that kind of thing.

Otherwise, they seem to be excellent candidates—looking at their voting records on VoteSmart, Clinton seems to have supported the invasion of Iraq, which is a shame (Obama wasn’t a senator at the time), but they both seem to have been fairly opposed to the war since then. They’re pro-choice, and in general fairly sensible—apparently, their voting records are something like 97% similar. With that in mind, I’d probably choose Clinton simply because she has more political experience, even though I’m slightly more in favour of Obama in terms of policies.

One last thing regarding the two of them—anyone who suggests that a feminist who supports Obama over Clinton is somehow "betraying the cause" needs to be beaten with a cluestick, and asked if supporting Clinton over Obama isn’t racist. kthxbye.