Re: The Alt-Right, the Ctrl-Left, and the Esc-Center
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 4:15 pm
HeavenSwan wrote…
Agreed, and thanks HeavenSwan.
Cynics rule number one; all good things are primary targets for corruption. The best protection for the elites is to use their juice to convince the public that all types of poor people are the problem. So then, whoever is finding villains among the small-fry is unconsciously or consciously running interference for the elites.
The bolded part is not right in that the folk mentioned are often only of the top ten percent. Still they depend on their strong support for the dominant and socially correct narrative to maintain their lifestyle.
The 1% get maintenance assistance from folk that swear up and down that they support the broad community rather than the rich. Hell, I must fall into the trap also now and again.
Anyway, I worry more about the 10%, them being the 'voice' of the 1%.
As 82-28 is wont to say; the Roman Empire never ended.
Really insightful article about recent history and how the left veered off the rails after Occupy Wall Street (which I was active in). Since then, class has been buried and lost in the shuffle and identity politics have increasingly devolved into a 'divide and conquer' tool that fuels toxic infighting.
Agreed, and thanks HeavenSwan.
Cynics rule number one; all good things are primary targets for corruption. The best protection for the elites is to use their juice to convince the public that all types of poor people are the problem. So then, whoever is finding villains among the small-fry is unconsciously or consciously running interference for the elites.
Turn on any mainstream news outlet and you will hear a clear and consistent narrative of a country polarized along racial and gender lines, but almost no mention of the role of class. Instead, the very wealthy 1% in the media, academia, and government (all fields dominated by members of the upper class) are also the most eager to embrace this new version of social justice.
Best-selling author Nassim Taleb has written in a similar vein about what he calls the “Intellectual Yet Idiot.” These idiot intellectuals are the 1% in the media, academia, and government who advocate for policies that may adversely affect the rest of the country, and do so from a position of comfort and privilege and without having to worry about the consequences. On issues like international trade agreements or immigration policies or crime and discord in urban communities, these modern-day aristocrats have “no skin in the game.” Instead they are happy to denigrate the lower classes as ignorant buffoons—the “basket of deplorables” to which Hillary Clinton infamously referred.
In this way, the 1% has found a very effective strategy to maintain and reinforce its privilege. Intersectional privileges, while important, are secondary to class privilege but they drum up enough internal division to distract from the original goals of the social justice movement. In this way, the 1% is no longer the enemy; they are the friends and benefactors of all downtrodden people around the world. The enemy is other poor and disenfranchised people.
The bolded part is not right in that the folk mentioned are often only of the top ten percent. Still they depend on their strong support for the dominant and socially correct narrative to maintain their lifestyle.
The 1% get maintenance assistance from folk that swear up and down that they support the broad community rather than the rich. Hell, I must fall into the trap also now and again.
Anyway, I worry more about the 10%, them being the 'voice' of the 1%.
As 82-28 is wont to say; the Roman Empire never ended.