#redwriter Blame The Rich

[la_marquise]

Everyone seems very determined in preaching the mantra of 'no, there's no hope: know your place'. And any attempt at looking for any alternative way is greeted with derision and contempt.
I'm 53. I am *not* naive. The next person who dismisses me with that line will be summarily blocked. If I have to respect you, then you play by the same rules and respect me. Sneering, gloating and bullying do not entitle you to a courteous response from me. Pointing and laughing when your own house is on fire may be cathartic, but it's not my duty to be polite when you shove it in my face.
Sneering at the underprivileged and labelling them stupid, racist, ignorant etc is not a solution. Calling everyone not in your little bubble 'them' is not a solution. I disagree profoundly with the working class and underclass leave voters but I do not blame them for what has happened. The narrative of fear, suspicion and jingoism has been fostered and promulgated by a particular subset of the global elite, who see personal advantage in creating and maintaining divisions between nations and cultures and who benefit by keeping the poor frightened, envious and empoverished. It has been created by a weak Tory leader who could not heal the deep divisions in his party. It has been created by ambitious and cynical upper class men who saw a chance to gain vast personal power.
Blame the plutocrats, and the media barons. Blame the Westminster cynics who repeatedly chose their own personal ambitions over what actually helps those they purported they serve. This includes the Blairites who are more interested in grabbing back leadership than in trying to address the crisis that grips the country right now. This includes the squabbling Tories. This includes UKIP, who have masqueraded as the champions of the people while admitting the rank and file of the old BNP and NF to their ranks and offering them up as plausible potential councillors and MPs without checking to see if they advocate apartheid or homophobia or virulent sexism.
Blame the rich. Every time you point fingers at the disprivileged who have voted Leave after decades of neglect and abuse from the establishment, you collude with that establishment. I wish to the bottom of my heart that more of the poorest had been able to believe in the EU and vote Remain. But I refuse to play the 'them and us' game. I refuse to follow the narrative preached by the greedy, biased, wealthy ruling classes who have brought the rest of us to our knees with their pandering to the free market over all, and their contempt for anyone who isn't just like them.

Comments

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

My issue (and I think the Thread's issue) is the toxicity of political discourse. America has already split into mutually uncomprehending tribes who believe everybogy who isn't their political clone is a fool or a scoundrel. And they would rather eat their own toenails than negotiate with the evil Other they've made in their heads.
The tribes are basically refusing to do 'politics' at all. Because politics IS the hard dance of negotiating a way for difference to live together. The tribalists prefer war, with clear heroes & villains. In this atmosphere, the favoured phrase is 'I hate'.

One of the biggest disasters of Brexit - aside from turning away from solidarity with our neighbours - is that it has imported the toxic tribalism of US discourse into our politics. We don't need a tea party here.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Almost didn't reply to this since didn't see it till a few days after you posted, but did want to say totally agree with you on the existence of toxic tribalism and most people on both the left and right being totally devoid of critical thinking whenever someone invokes "go Team!" or "support us bcoz other side sux or you suck too!"

I would differ that, at least seen from afar, British politics no longer seem a whole lot saner (or any saner) than American politics*. The rot didn't just spread now, you were already afflicted. (again, seen from afar, and not paying as much attention to be sure that this isn't just the bits and pieces I saw from here). Would also differ that the existence of tribes refusing to critically think whenever anyone invokes certain buzzwords doesn't mean that the leadership of either or both tribes isn't actually evil. (or, I would say, more specificially, the leadership of the big corporations who have basically bought and paid for the media and political leadership of nearly all the tribes are actively evil, in the sense that, imo, anyone is actively evil and genuinely monstrous if they are more concerned with short term profits and adding more money you don't need to your bank account and improving your position in cocktail party pecking order than with, say, whether people are starving or being killed or whether species are going extinct or whether the entire biosphere might go extinct.

Sure, if you have to play politics with these people do so, but don't ever, ever kid yourself they are your friends or give a shit whether you live or die. We have over three decades of them proving they don't.

I think our difference is that you think the neoliberal types actually care about things like the death of millions or entire species on a level comparable to how they care about their personal status. I see not the slightest whisker of evidence for this, and giant mountains of evidence otherwise. To somewhat paraphrase a line of yours, continuing to try to politely play politics with "scoundrels" (a more polite word than they deserve) whose word is worth less than used toilet paper and who would kill you in a heartbeat (or, rather, hire someone else to kill you in a way that would allow them to wave their hands and placate their followers with "what? I had nothing to do with this!") is very, very foolish.

*This does not mean I don't think the British & European social welfare states weren't a lot better than ours. And still are, but your dear leaders seem busy dismantling and destroying, while using tribalism & identity politics to keep people at each other's throats so no one blames their "side" for things getting suckier for EVERYBODY except the most well off, same as our dear leaders did in screwing up what used to be a nice place to live over here. On the positive side, the EU does seem to get the whole need to stop global warming in the interest of preserving at least some of the current life on earth, as opposed to merely paying lip service, and they do seem get the importance of biodiversity, at least on an intellectual level, so y'all way ahead of us on that score.