zeoevil wrote:I've always wanted to ask one of you about that. From an outsider's perspective, it almost seems like your media actively hates you and wants to destroy you and wipe your history from memory. What the hell is that all about?
I can't tell if you're being deliberately vague in your question here, as this is an argument that's used by both the left and right.
The context of the UK is that we have a print news media that is overwhelmingly right wing or liberal/centrist and owned by a handful of billionaires, including Rupert Murdoch. There is no mainstream left wing media beyond occasional opinion pieces by left wing columnists in a few liberal papers. The BBC dominates the broadcast news media but is essentially pro-establishment with a liberal wash and takes the government line on most political issues because of the ever-present threat of 'reform'.
Essentially what this results in is a media that supports the various shades of right-wing economics that operate in the UK, from 'free-market' corporatist neoliberalism to 'conservative' class-based rentier capitalism. There is occasional nominal support for social democratic institutions like the NHS and welfare state while in reality they are attacked and undermined daily.
So to address your question directly, the right-wing press takes essentially a class-based populist cultural line to superficially appeal to its target demographics, while implying that their culture/livelihood is relentlessly under attack from the 'other' (the 'other' being migrants/'foreigners'/Marxists - whatever suits). Simultaneously they relentlessly attack 'socialist' institutions and policies that might actually benefit their readers' lives.
In short, using the 'culture war' to distract from the economic structures that impoverish ordinary people.
You have to also understand that the flag-waving populism designed to appeal to the 'working class' is cosplay by middle class journalists - so in this sense they patronise and hate the readers they are superficially appealing to.
The role that liberal/centrist media plays in this is superficially showing disgust at right-wing governments and policies, signalling progressive views, while in reality supporting these views and policies by vigorously attacking any substantive opposition to them - at no time was this clearer than in the last few years when the Labour party moved left (although mot much further left than social democracy standard in most European countries) and was as a result subject to personal and relentless attack and ridicule from all quarters of the UK press.
All quarters of the UK press routinely take a negative line on all expressions of public solidarity that they deem to be a threat to the status quo - Unions, public protests etc., under the banner of 'upholding the law and protecting the livelihoods of decent working families' as if the people protesting/organising are somehow separate from those 'ordinary people'.
With regard to 'wiping history', the press and UK establishment have, since their inception, been in the job of writing history in their favour. They exist to shape the public narrative over time, by omission and inclusion of the parts of history politically convenient for them to remember and forget, to literally 'whitewash' British history.
In recent years this has been done via the culture war 'anti-woke' narrative imported from US politics, but in reality has existed in various forms for decades.
Hence we have, for example, the 'patriotic' myths of Britain's uniquely benevolent colonialism and how Britain 'stood alone against evil' in WW2.
I have personal experience of this where the organisation I work for have recently been attacked as 'woke' for daring to publicise the factual slavery-related history of the various properties that they own and look after.
zeoevil wrote:Based on my discussion with my conservative friends, I think I've found some of the impetus for this belief. To the average blue collar worker, when conservative are in power, their employers, assuming they are decent people, have been able to pay them more. When liberals are in power, they have less to pay them because they have to pay more to the government, in this case the liberals. So to them, the left is the real enemy because the left has historically made it more difficult for them to support themselves and their families.
While it is only my observation as someone who has worked in kitchens his whole life, this has mostly been true. Especially in the last four years. Take that for what you will.
The economic relationships and dynamics are in no way as simple as you describe here, though, are they?
There's a lot of assumptions here, ones that are essentially fostered by political outlook -
Firstly, that emplyoyers are generally 'decent people'. One can be, of course, a 'decent person' while turning a blind eye/ideologically explaining away the fundamentally exploitative relationship between all employers and employees.
Secondly, that money taken in tax from the employer simply 'disappears' into 'government waste' that in no way benefits the employee. In reality, to a lesser or greater extent, this money provides basic public services and infrastructure than benefit both employees and employers.
In fact, if healthcare in the US was socialised, this would remove a significant burden from employers that pay for employee healthcare, and leave more money in the pockets of employees, as a tax-funded healthcare system has been shown to be much more efficient than insurance-based.
There are also other assumptions - that there are no individual benefits from the social cohesion created by publicly-funded universal services such as libraries, healthcare, welfare, education and so on.
An influence here is also the American historical individualist mindset that everyone is solely, personally responsible for 'supporting their family'. Im not disagreeing with or belittling this - but there is an element of pretending that the historical roots of this attitude are unchangingly relevant to a present-day society (that is much more connected and socially reliant), that plays directly into the hands of individualist consumer corporatism.
From my observation, which is not to belittle or dismiss anyone's personal experiences that are obviously better than mine (although my brother lives in the US, so I'm not totally without experience) the US ,for decades has had an unchanging direction towards low-tax neoliberalism with fairly minor variations in individual taxes over that time so it seems more likely to that major variations in the income of employees are more due to the cyclical nature of the overall US economy.
There is a very clear and demonstrable stagnation in average wages over decades, while taxes themselves are lower overall than they've ever been - wealth for the average US citizen was at it's height, was it not, in the 1950s when tax and unionisation was at its peak?
I realise it's possible that the tone of my post here comes across as patronising, as it's hard to judge on an internet forum - please do not take it as such. Given that you've said that you're economically conservative I'm assuming that we disagree fundamentally on the nature of our economic system and its benefits and problems and I have no problem with that.
