What first motivated you politically?

[Paul S]

Yesterday I sent back my completed application form for another years membership of the Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP). It marks my eleventh year of membership.

I joined the OMRLP in 1997 because I didn't like Tony Blair. Everyone was jumping up and down saying what a brilliant leader he was and how he would change Britain, but I didn't know what he stood for. I didn't know what his policies were, what he planned to do and what would happen. I still don't think much has happened in the last ten years or so to be honest. I didn't want the conservatives in again, but I didn't like the look of New Labour either.

I was just wondering - what motivated people on OTF to get interested in politics and to end up taking the view they have. Was it a particular event or rally, or was it just a gradual thing?

[Spearmint Rhino]

What first motivated you politically?

BALD BRUMMIES!!! BALD BRUMMIES!!!

[beak]

What first motivated you politically?

Hahaha!

Sadly, my politicisation came from listening to Propagandhi records and reading Maximumrocknroll.

[EIM]

What first motivated you politically?

I'd forgotten Paul S was a Monster Raving Loony. That was one of the things that made me suspect he wasn't a real person. One of many things. Apparently he is though, which is a bit troubling.

Eleven years, though, Paul. Why? You got fucked off in 1997, and thought to yourself, "Fuck this, I'm making a stand." And so you joined the MRLP? What a difference you have made.

[Anton Gramscescu]

What first motivated you politically?

Does being a Monster Raving Loony actually count as politically engaged? Isn't it sort of like saying: I'm a basketball fan, and my team is the Harlem Globetrotters?

[beak]

What first motivated you politically?

Maybe he's serious about the issue of the 99p coin.

[ursus arctos]

What first motivated you politically?

For me, it was without question opposition to the Vietnam War, which was in many ways the defining event of my childhood. I was more politically active between the ages of 7 and 13 than I have been since.

[Spearmint Rhino]

What first motivated you politically?

Anyway, for me it was no single thing but a combination of the mass unemployment of the early 1980s, the nuclear arms race, the Falklands War, and the political message of bands like The Specials and The Beat.

[boris]

What first motivated you politically?

When I was a kid I was watching some drama on TV, and one of the characters got asked a long, involved, complex political question, at the end of which he said "don't ask me, I'm an Anarchist". So I asked my Dad "What's an Anarchist?", and he said "someone who didn't believe in governments and authority" and I said "okay then, I'm an Anarchist". And I've been an Anarchist ever since.

And that, children, is why you should never watch Play for Today.

[Spearmint Rhino]

What first motivated you politically?

A different week, a different play, and things might have been a whole lot worse...

[Moonlight Shadow]

What first motivated you politically?

Anti-racism and anti-nuclear protest for me, particularly the later, it was a hot subject in Geneva back in the 80's with the French building a super-reactor in a small village not far from the city (handily enough nowhere near any major French town or city...) cooled down with liquid sodium, a very instable material. That's when I first got accointed with CRS, random identity checks, police brutality, tear gas and radical activism (the Swiss-German protesters were much more into direct action than us wimpy Swiss-French). A conference of the World Anti-Communist League near Geneva Airport also ended up pretty badly, that's when I realised Swiss riot police ain't much better than the CRS and I ran the fastest in my life (despite being nearly blinded by tear gas but when you have a lunatic chasing you with a truncheon you don't really think to much about it...)

Good training for the football terraces...

[Guest]

What first motivated you politically?

I think I always had strong feelings about animal rights; and that's kind of led to the environment being the most important thing for me. So, a mixture of pity and terror, probably.

[The Purple Cow]

What first motivated you politically?

I just grew up in a left-wing environment. My parents met because they were both in the Stetchford Young Socialists, and my maternal grandmother was a Labour party organizer from the late 1920's onwards. On election day my grandparents house would be festooned with the red and yellow carnations my grandfather grew.

I guess if I had been a rebellious kid I would have joined the Conservatives, but fortunately I wasn't.

Specifically I was motivated by the Civil Rights movement, Viet Nam, and the fact that most of my mates went to school in grim victorian slums. I was probably at my most political around the age of 11/12, when I my politics were somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao.

[boris]

What first motivated you politically?

The Purple Cow wrote:

my politics were somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao.

That right wing cunt? Bloody reformists.

[Mumpo]

What first motivated you politically?

I had a right bolshy (and indeed Bolshy) mate when I was ten, who had clearly read the Labour Party manifesto and styled himself as a Socialist revolutionary. The upshot of this was that we campaigned vigorously in school for the pupils to be unionised, in an attempt to wrest control of the institution from the bourgeoise teachers.

In years to come, my mate became a plumber and made a mint in the late-80's yuppie years. Plus la change, eh.

[Gangster Octopus]

What first motivated you politically?

I was brought up for a short period of time by my grandparents who were staunch and active Labour Party members, and subsequently, when my mother became active I just sort of joined in. I've always been active or semi-active since then; the seventies being most fun with various demos and things. These days I'm just as sullen bastard.

[Wyatt Earp]

What first motivated you politically?

I can't remember not being political. Politics, and specifically the (old) Labour Party, were an everpresent theme in my house. I was taking names outside polling stations, and knocking up the vote, when I wasn't much older than my son is now. I can't imagine him going for that in a million years.

I had a bit of a toro-a-few-years-ago-style crisis of faith at one stage, and read a lot of right-wingers and liberals. I think that was mainly brought on by the self-righteous, Rick out of the Young Ones, cant that the student Left went in for in a certain East Anglian market town where I used to hang out. (I have vivid memories of a pre-Laddist David Baddiel as a right-on comic a la Elton; excuse me, I feel a bit ill...)

OK, so what was left when all that had been eroded was trade unionism. I rebuilt my political view of the world from that. Since then, and to this day, I'd describe myself as a trade unionist first and foremost, with everything else being secondary and flowing from this. I'm not hung up on whether or not I count as a "socialist": depends on how the term's defined.

Monster Raving Loony Party, though? Fuck's sake.

[evilC]

What first motivated you politically?

As a child/youth, a growing awareness of the pretty-much-constant stream of racially-motivated attacks that were reported on the news throughout the 70s. That and foxhunting/sealclubbing/whalehunting. I'm still not veggie, though. :-/

[Andy C]

What first motivated you politically?

It's a long time ago. I think it was a combination of absorbing the my father's muttered reactions to the television news (for example, I remember vividly his encapsulation of the story of Muhammad Ali's conscientious objection - "the draft's just a matter of the poorer you are and the blacker you are") and an ability to extrapolate from the information gleaned from school history lessons and my reading.

[Guest]

What first motivated you politically?

Iraq.

And this place.

[boris]

What first motivated you politically?

Yeah, both my parents were active in the old Labour Party (my mother resigned her membership when Blair repealed Clause 4), and like Wyatt I spent many of my formative years taking names at polling stations and trailing in my parents' footsteps as they canvassed (in vain) for the local Labour candidate. Unlike Wyatt, though, I would say that Trades Unionism follows from Socialism, rather than the other way round, and I would say that my Anarchism also follows from my Socialism.

[JtS]

What first motivated you politically?

I'm the polar opposite to Wyatt, I have never been motivated politically, the closest thing in my upbringing was my uncle and aunt who were both part of the local Liberal Democrats, and my parents going to the local conservative club because the booze was (and is still) cheap.

[Gangster Octopus]

What first motivated you politically?

Ah, the joys of number-taking and canvassing. And don't forget delivering leaflets. And knocking-up...

[Duncan Gardner]

What first motivated you politically?

Fatah throwing a molotov through our bathroom window.

But if you're reading, Mahmoud, no hard feelings. Ma'alish.

And what Boris said about socialism.

[Bored Of Education]

What first motivated you politically?

I am not sure what "first" motivated me. My parents were Daily Express/Mail buying Conservatives who, if not Thatcherites, were people who felt they benefitted from her reign of terror.

However, they were never really reactionary as such and did certainly engender an atmosphere where we all ended up with a strong opinions and heartily debated them.

Both me and my brother were Conservatives as teenagers who were firmly anti-CND but have both evolved away from that (I still have mixed views about the nuclear issue though). I think that we had different views on the first miners strike from our school/college friends because we actually did have some small contact with miners during Miners Fortnight in Porthcawl.

One defining point that I think started to firm up my political beliefs later on was going on the Anti-Nazi League March in Welling in 1993.

I think I still had a vage residual middle class trust of the police and the establishment before then which pretty much vanished after that.