A Quote by Chuka Umunna
Political parties - which too often operate like closed circles - must open up.
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We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
Rich people live in places so removed from everybody else, they operate in circles so incestuous and so closed, they're off on islands. To try to understand their indifference is to understand also their separation from the rest of society.
I think frustration unfortunately, reflects a real breakdown in the political parties themselves, which is fascinating because our constitution did not anticipate political parties. They're not even written in the Constitution, there's no guidelines. When we look at the arcane processes of delegate selection in the primaries and caucuses, it's not in the Constitution. This is all created post Constitution. And yet I think we're in the middle of tensions between and within the political parties. They're not functioning that well.
Growing up in Egypt, I never saw the country as divided as it is today. We now have two main political groupings: the Islamist parties and the civil, or liberal, political parties.
Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion.
In the 00s, it was often claimed that political apathy had replaced political participation. Membership of political parties and electoral turnout were both said to be in irreversible decline.
Think of the wonderful circles in which our whole being moves and from which we cannot escape no matter how we try. The circler circles in these circles.
The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.
It's easy to talk about our system not functioning. It's actually functioning exactly the way we've designed it to function by giving so much power to the political parties, which all of our, you know, leading founders - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison - all said don't create political parties like the ones we have now. We did it, and we're paying a very high price for it.
Often, just explicitly acknowledging how the other side must see things can help them open up to see your side and can help both parties achieve a fair and constructive outcome.
Elections in India are not contests between personalities. They are ultimately battles involving political parties; promises and pledges that political parties make; the vision and programmes that political parties bring to the table. So although, Modi's style is 'I, me, myself,' I don't think 2014 elections as a Modi versus Rahul contest.
Most of my Muslim friends are politically liberal in a lot of senses. They are far more open-minded than the Christian circles I grew up in, which are, you know, actually scarier. That said, too, I still identify with the teachings of Jesus. I don't think they resemble or relate to modern-day Christianity.
For the believer in divine creation, the open question of the Mystery of Being is like an open wound. It stings and gapes, and the believer cannot rest till it be healed up, closed up, smeared with the soothing balm of an answer, even if his doctrine be a sophisticated one like Aquinas's or that of the latest Liberal Protestant theologian.
The older generations are too wedded to political parties, too wedded to romantic memories of what education was like when they were kids, and too wedded to the status quo group that clings to power.
Political parties often take advantage of denial and fear in a moment of change. This is a well understood phenomenon that often leads to scapegoat-ism: blaming outsiders, such as immigrants, or racial and religious minorities. The phenomenon is behind Brexit and the violence in the political cycles in the US and EU.
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