What movie would you want to see?
And then we wonder why the overton window shifts inexorably rightward.
Most people, including the working class and the poor the left used to represent, don't want to hear about that bullshit, they want their lives to be relatively fulfilling, secure with occasional diversions. They want their three "b's". They don't want to be told why nuclear is better than coal, they just want their television to be working, and relatively cheaply so, when their team is playing in the Rugby World Cup.
The problem with the so-called "serious" and ever-educated left? They never took communications 101. You can't get a point accross to most people if it has more than five to seven relatively simply, easily understandable and digestible points.
The other side gets it. They invoke "freedom," "democracy," "liberty," "opportunity."
We play fun with numbers exercises to fool ourselves that there's no problem for the working class, there's no unemployment, opportunity abounds for all, it's all how you play with statistics. And this interests very few outside of our lefty circle jerk, and convinces less still. So the other side, beyond their hackneyed phrases "freedom" and "liberty" and the rest get to add, increasingly with conviction, "respect," a word Sarko used to great effect, coupled with "work". The left doesn't respect you, they don't care if you've a gainful occupation.
The left used to understand this, back when the left was led not by over-educated enarques who may or may not have risen from the ranks, but by working class heroes who chose to rise with the ranks. The lyrical left.
Our power words? "Class," "struggle," "equality," "peace," "security," "solidarity" to name a few. All of which have been de-emphasized by our more "serious," well-educated representatives on the left.
It's not a question of nuance versus black and white. It's a question of taking man as he is, rather than as one would like for him to be. Man as he is doesn't give a shit for all your policy nuance any more than you give a shit which sort of friction grease he uses before facing a bottom bracket. He wants you to deliver equality, peace, security and solidarity, and that's that, just as all you want is your bike to be built well.
Small wonder the PS got its clock cleaned. The left is losing the ideas war, and it is because the left has forgotten how to talk to its core constituencies: the poor and the working class. Royal was a good candidate, but once she was no longer the face of the party for legislatives, the old faces, Fabius, Strauss Kahn, came back to remind many of the PS no one liked anymore.
Unsurprisingly, they stayed home. And no amount of belly-aching about how the other side communicates better than we do will change this. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I would say the European Socialist and Labour parties are no longer "left", but they are morphing into social-liberal parties. There is a huge ideological space to the left of them, and a huge unrepresented working class. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
I have no problems with that.
It is true that the lily-livered do tend to congregate on the left side of the spectrum. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Oh great redstar, do lead us into the future, by whatever means are necessary. Out of curiousity, how far down their road do you intend leading us? A few lies for their own good? The politics of fear? Maybe a bit of necessary detention without trial? Maybe we can invent some enemies to help herd the sheep. Islamofascists perhaps? Has that been done already? Well, there must be some brown or yellow people that haven't been used? Some external enemies to help unite the nation? Maybe a little war or two?
It doesn't take much imagination to see alternative frames, ones which explicitly use class for instance.
Not all bankers are pot-bellied thiefs, for instance, just as not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all wealthy people are rapacious exploiters, just as not all brown or yellow people are at the gates waiting in their hordes to take our public housing.
But we can continue to use the social democracy frames, such as they are, if you like. It's just that...well....they're not working very well, are they? Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
You see, our less-than-perfectly-honest frames even have the advantage of hewing closer to reality than theirs.
Of course, theirs have greater currency, for the simple fact of the matter is that they are willing to give voice to them.
We're not, and that's the entire point. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
What? You don't think you're as much a rapacious exploiter and a thief as most other rich people?
I also do not think all in the 1st world are as you describe; the world is at it is because of the elites in that 1st world, and the economic system they seek to perpetuate for their increasing gain, at the expense of workers in both developed and developing countries. Most of us are just along for the ride, and many of us do not want to be. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
a majority of wealthy people are rapacious exploiters, and most bankers are thiefs
And most people in the business world are shameless exploiters, too?
Sigh.
That's where we split up. The problem is not the top 50% or even the top 10%, it's the top 0.1%. As you may remember, the 10-50% income range (fro mthe top) is not doing that mch better than the 50-90% income range. It's worth trying to target them too if you want a majority. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
It is a fact though that those who have accumulated great wealth have much different ideas on their responsibility to their fellow men than those who have not, and yes, this translates into feelings of superiority, deserved or not, which naturally tends to lead them to have no qualms about ruthlessly exploiting, either in home markets or further afield, the misery and toil of others. This is simply a fact. It is as it ever was, and what makes capitalism "work". Not for nothing that Keynes said
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
Similarly, it's a fact that those doing the transacting for them of the deals via which they accumulate ever greater sums of wealth tend to be far greedier than the average. Your average equity analyst does not tend to the altruistic side, shall we say, nor does your average CFO or investor relations professional. At least not over here in America, where I am one.
Problem is, the so-called "serious" left parties ignore the 50-90% group but are very keen on keeping folks like you and I on side. And that's why they get their asses increasingly kicked.
Why not target them too? Because their interests are not ours. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Ah, redstar. What a shame. Fine comment originally, but totally eclipsed by the one above.
Eclipsed- as in putting out the lights.
It is not necessary to dish up the lies in order to create an important narrative that is convincing to a wide swath of people, from all walks and all levels. You just have to be good at it.
Al Gore comes to mind. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
