Just to re-cap, it was Wojtek who said the left was always "kvetching" a "a bunch of chronic complainers and crackpots" without an alternative.
I must say I thought "kvetching" was pretty accurate.
Here is Goerge Monbiot arguing that London's successful Olympic bid and the government's commitment to use the Olympics to promote regeneration is a problem:
"You regenerate an area in order to improve the lives of the poor. You clean it up, reduce crime, improve the housing stock. The rich move in from neighbouring boroughs. House prices soar, rents rise and the poor are pushed out." http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/20/untroubled-by-democracy/
well, we know what he means, but isn't this saying that no regeneration is better?
Here's the New Statesman's Alec Russell:
"Buoyed by the surge in global commodities prices, and steered by Mbeki's prudent fiscal policies, South Africa's econ omy is enjoying its most concerted spurt since the Second World War and Johannesburg is booming."
Good news, you might think, but no, it is just the lead in to the inevitable question "where is the catch?" "what happened to the idealism of the ANC cadres I knew back in the early Nineties? The cynical or simple answer is that many have been seduced by easy money."
Success, is described as "corruption" and worse still "bling" as in "It may be ugly, but the era of bling has some years to run yet." Oh god fobid that black people should make any money! What shocking taste they have! http://www.newstatesman.com/200705070015
Here's Suzanne Moore in the New Statesman, reflecting on Blair's legacy:
"Ten years ago, we saw ourselves reflected by Blair as young and energetic. Now we are broken down, isolated and anxious. The "remoralisation" of society never happened: he leaves behind a country in fragments." http://www.newstatesman.com/200705070032
Well, maybe the problem was that Moore was taken in by Phoney Tony in the first place, but please, 'broken down, isolated and anxious ... a country in fragments'. That's not the country I live in.
Monbiot again says that Tesco's (UK equivalent of WalMart) green commitments are not to be trusted, though conceding that stores have done more than government to save energy. His punch-line:
Tescos "tells us, 'must become a mass movement in green consumption.'(10) But what about consuming less? Less is the one thing the superstores cannot sell us." Less, there's a rallying cry.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/01/23/the-new-friends-of-the-earth/