UK
election
The
following example, presented by Jimmy Dore in his show, is another
sign that the classic narratives and methods of the establishment to
maintain the pro-plutocracy neoliberal agenda, are fading rapidly.
All it takes, is a good speaker with simple, sensible speech, to
repel the absurdity behind the 'logic' of the corporate agents in the
media.
In this
interview, Sarah Champion, Shadow Secretary of State for Women and
Equalities for the Labour Party in the UK, actually exposes this
absurdity, by just making some sense.
Champion
starts with a very sensible sentence which any political party should
take for granted:
What we
are trying to do, here today, is have a campaign that is based on
facts, that is genuinely looking at how we can benefit everybody in
this country.
The response
from the media pundit is the most typical for those who adopt the
classic (and obsolete now), neoliberal narrative, resembling the old,
well-known Thatcherism. Therefore, he tries to interpret a very
straight and clear answer according to this neoliberal dogma:
But
basically what you're saying is that we are going to spend money on
nice things and we're going to do it by squeezing people who won't
feel the pain ...
Well, no
pretexts are kept here. This is the personification of a system that
works for the elites who want to pay less and less taxes for the
benefit of the rest of the society, even when they exploit the state
to make more money and even when they see their profits grow
enormously, in many cases without moving a finger. (Notice how Jimmy
Dore hilariously comments on the obvious absurdity of this statement
at 10:12.)
So, this was
very easily repealed by Champion, again through simple logic and real
rationality, contrary to the distorted rationality of the neoliberal
establishment that has become mainstream over the decades.:
If nice
things are things like education, about taking care of when you're
poorly, then, yes, we think those sorts of things are very important,
... and, yes, that means that some people and particularly businesses
that are making a big profit, and they are not reinvesting it back to
our country, yes, we will be looking at them paying their fair share.
Then, again,
the response of the representative of the establishment comes from
the 'manual' of the classic neoliberal narratives, based on the
deliberately simplified (and therefore, false) equation that cutting
taxes for big corporations equals more jobs:
Where is
your evidence that they are not reinvesting it back in the economy?
We do, after all, have record levels of employment.
Champion
beats him again by simply telling the truth:
What I'm
looking at, our businesses that are taking the money offshore, that
are not looking at paying their employees properly ... what we want
to see is that wealth is shared out, because really, when you look at the business, they are using the infrastructure, they are benefiting
from the education system we've got. So, paying your fair share back
in again, that seems very sensible to me.
Then, when
the pundit sees that he is about to suffer a heavy defeat by an
intelligent speaker, it's time to disorientate the discussion towards
the 'identity politics' (as also noticed by Jimmy Dore). Pay
attention to a common trick used by the establishment mouthpieces
here, as the pundit deliberately starts his next question with
additional emphasis, highlighting the fact that Sarah Champion is
Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, in order to harm
her credibility and, therefore, the credibility of the Labour Party,
against all women, therefore, the half electorate:
You are
Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. Why do you think
it is that the Conservatives have now had two women Prime Ministers
and Labour haven't had any?
Champion
laughs against this effort of the pundit to disorientate the
discussion away from the substance of the politics and gives, again,
the right, sensible answer:
Why do
you think it is that in the budget that we've just had, 86% of the
cuts and changes the Treasury made, fell on women's shoulders, how is
that about equality? They are the sort of big questions that we're
looking at, not looking at one individual. We're looking at how is
it that certain groups in our society are facing the biggest cuts?
Why is it that low mothers are repeatedly not reaching their full
potential? ...
Notice that,
for the first time, the pundit interrupts Champion (probably because
they are shouting in his microphone to smear her), in a last,
desperate effort to disorientate discussion away from the substance
of the politics:
You're
telling us Jeremy Corbyn would be a better Prime Minister than
Theresa May, so, you are looking at individuals, aren't you?
But he gets
again the appropriate answer:
Yes,
what's that got to do with her being a woman, or not?
It is worth
to remember that 'identity politics' were used extensively by the
establishment, especially during the primaries of the Democratic
party in the US in favor of Hillary Clinton and against the biggest
threat for the establishment, Bernie Sanders. As pointed in previous
article:
The
establishment becomes highly predictable, which is a sign of
saturation. It is remarkable how the establishment mechanisms use
similar narratives everywhere to expel undesirable politicians and
policies.
Just one
paragraph from the article My
Hail Bernie Pass by Fred
Baumgarten, describes almost the whole situation: “Now
that I’m proclaiming my support for Sanders, I expect the vitriol
to be no less intense, though maybe from some other quarters with
different arguments. Secretly my friends will suspect that maybe I’m
a misogynist, too, and don’t want a female president. I’ll be
accused of being 'impractical' and 'hopelessly idealistic,' and of
'wasting' my vote. And I’ll still be held personally responsible
for getting Trump elected!”
One of the
most successful psychological techniques used by the mechanisms of
the establishment, is the bombardment of mind with isolated words,
or, phrases, ending up to become powerful symbols. These symbols are
frequently so powerful that manage to prevail over the ability of
mind to build a rational hierarchy. Which, many times, equals to
heavy misjudgment.
For example,
the fact that the United States will have the opportunity to be
governed "for the first time in their history by a female
president", often prevails over what this president truly
represents, especially among the female voters. The election of
Hillary will give a superficial satisfaction to many Americans, that
the United States will become an even more progressive society (after
Obama term), while in reality, Hillary will certainly follow the
"politics as usual", totally aligned with the neocon
agenda.
Psychological
methods also use "logical leaps" to force the individual to
bypass a certain rational hierarchy. The example in Baumgarten's
paragraph above is characteristic: even his friends will suspect that
he is a misogynist, just by saying that he will support Sanders
instead of Clinton. The political arguments, which is the main issue
in such a process, since they determine the policies that will have
direct effect to millions of Americans, are bypassed through this
absurdly simplified "logical leap": You vote for Sanders =
You are probably a misogynist.
So, in our
current example, the establishment pundit follows a similar method.
He tries to present the Labour Party as being not friendly to women's
rights through the absurdly simplified observation that it has a male
leader against the Concervatives who have a female one. Yet, his
mission fails miserably because he gets the right answer from
Champion, proving that the policies and the level of progressiveness
of each party have nothing to do with their leader being male or
female.
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