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A Worsening Culture War

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Re: A Worsening Culture War

#121

Post by zests »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
Loughla wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what people missed about Trump's supporters in 2016. People genuinely believed he was going to work for the common man. He talked about workers rights (in a xenophobic sort of way, but still) he talked about increasing pay for blue collar workers, and about restoring the lost legacy to places that have been abandoned by globalization. That never got talked about by Trump detractors. Union working class Joe-Sch…

Talk is cheap. For whatever reason, the increased pay and benefits for blue collar workers exists, by far, in Democrat areas, and is implemented by Democrat politicians.

Talk is cheap, voting is not. How do you explain blue collar workers voting red?

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#122

Post by kodah »

javert wrote: post #79
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's cruel about it?

It would be cruel if he blamed the Jews. It would be cruel if he blamed the blacks. It would be cruel if he blamed the poor. Somehow it's not cruel if he blames the rich?

Being Jewish or Black is not comparable to being rich. I'm not sure what you're arguing here.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#123

Post by tartoran »

krebs_liebhaber wrote: post #86
Roritharr wrote: post #9

The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that start…

America is colonizing the rest of the developed world. There are probably at least a billion people worldwide (mostly in Europe, but also among Third-World elites) who act American and are invested in America's issues despite never having set foot in the country. The internet has exacerbated this greatly. Just look at the BLM protests in Poland and Japan... or the Amerikaner "digital nomads" who are able to live in f…

Somewhat true. I have friends and relatives in Eastern Europe heavily rooting for the Biden or Trump (usually the less educated or even uneducated) and yet they have no real stake in it but it’s as if they’re voting themselves. And I think they realized that America sets the tone so whoever gets the power will influence them too eventually.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#124

Post by motohagiography »

florencebuzz wrote: post #92
motohagiography wrote: post #56

The wealthy as the plotters in this article overlooks a change in the last 50 years. A century ago, private industrial wealth and power were in effect synonymous, but today the industrial wealthy are relative front men to a core of institutional players with considerably less wealth, but who have the levers of policy that pervade every micro aspect of life now.The wealthy people I know are not running the culture war…

join https://classunity.org

That's hilarious, no thank you. :)

I'm focused on culture, which are things like family, community, spirit, code, music, sport, art, fiction, and thought. War also is a part of life, and if it ever came to that in my lifetime, I suppose you could say I will be engaged in politics then too, but that kind of reckoning i think is a last resort.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#127

Post by chongli »

Aunche wrote: post #59
hprotagonist wrote: post #3

"That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about, the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they the rich, can run off with all the fucking money. Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know…

Virtually everything about that Carlin quote is completely wrong. There is no business in the world outside of news media (which includes the author) that makes or preserves money from the middle class fighting with the lower class. They'd rather the power classes get over their differences so they can make money off them. The top 1% in US pay more taxes in taxes than the bottom 90%. Before you ask, I do think that t…

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. All 3 make gigabucks from the culture war.

Apple, on the other hand, does not wade into the culture war. What they do instead is make money off people's status anxiety by selling luxury products to people on food stamps.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#128

Post by meekmind »

Aunche wrote: post #33

Despite there being no quantitative evidence of cultural divisiveness being profitable for the wealthy as a whole, it's a popular narrative because it's a simple deflection of blame. Maybe the author should reflect on their own writing rather than point a finger at the rich. I'm sure Bezos would be happier if the Trump adminstration wouldn't rig a multi billion dollar defense contract in response to his newspaper. Yo…

I will agree there is a degree of culpability in the general population and a preference to deflect blame on both sides.

I would also agree that it is important to define what "rich" means since making class distinctions and comparisons does change the emphasis and logic considerably.

That said, the (ultra) wealthy tend to profit either way and prefer chaos because it puts an incredible downward pressure on the classes below them. That downward pressure minimizes the likelihood of future competition. It's a long game that only the (ultra) wealthy can afford to play.

Also, leverage is an important consideration. It's easier for a billionaire to leverage 1 billion dollars compared to 1 billion people leveraging 1 dollar. There would be measurable consequences either way, but that billionaire is in a much different position by having singular command of that wealth.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#129

Post by ck425 »

Roritharr wrote: post #9

The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that start…

One thing I've noticed is the whole sale importation of the BLM movement to the UK. I'm not overly aware of the issue facing ethnic minorities in the UK (I live in Scotland where it's almost entirely white with some small asian communities, which isn't to say there isn't racism just few people to discuss it with personally) but from reading around racism in the UK is very different to the US. Despite this we've adopted BLM views wholesale, including call to defund the police.

I fully support discussing racism in the UK and what we can do to counter it but I don't get why we're discussing it as if it's the exact same situation over here with the same solutions. This might to a symptom of London centric-ness where there is far more ethnic diversity and therefore racism.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#130

Post by tartoran »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #120
tpm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists mostly because of massive propaganda financed by very wealthy people for whom it is essential to indoctrinate masses to be even more wealthy and powerful.

I don’t understand how it’s propaganda when one can analyze labors laws in various jurisdictions and see that all the areas with labor laws better for workers and poorer people are mostly in areas governed by Democrats.

Thats the whole point, the propaganda is also disinformation and making other issues seem a lot more decisive and important than what really affects the people. The propaganda makes them vote against their interests
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