One of the ways
in which the rich and powerful elite in any state preserve their power and
wealth is by managing the perceptions of those not in their number in such a
way that they blame each other for their comparative lack of power and wealth,
rather than blaming those who hold that power and wealth. At it’s simplest, it’s a case of divide and
rule. And the more that they can divide,
the longer they can rule. It’s a job
which is made easier if enough people are sufficiently discontented with their
lot.
So they blame
the poor for their poverty and the unemployed for their lack of work, and
encourage the working population to see the least well off as scroungers and
layabouts, the solution to which is to cut their benefits and make it harder
for them to feed themselves and their families, so that they become less of a
burden on ‘hard-working families’.
Or they blame
immigrants for taking their jobs and houses, encouraging those same ‘hard-working’
families to believe that it is due to immigrants that schools and hospitals are
overcrowded and underfunded so that they themselves can’t get an adequate
education or health service which meets their needs.
Then they blame
the EU. If only the taxes of those ‘hard-working
families’ weren’t being sent to those horrid Eurocrats, we’d have more than
enough money to provide a decent health service and well-equipped schools.
And then they blame
the elderly. If only the money of ‘hard-working
families’ wasn’t being used to subsidise the pensions and care needs of all
those old people, just imagine how much easier it would be for the younger
people to get on the housing ladder and enjoy the increasing level of affluence
which their parents’ generation enjoyed.
And people are
taken in. A compliant media – with its
own vested interest in the status quo – peddles the same lines day in and day
out, while one group after another is demonised and punished for taking money
away from those ‘hard-working families’.
And in the meantime, the richest 1% becomes ever richer, accumulating a
greater and greater proportion of the national wealth; this is assumed to be ‘normal’
and anyone challenging it is a dangerous enemy.
Such is the power
of the ideology which the current political and economic system has created
around itself. It’s built on the lies
and deceit of the few and, above all, the gullibility and compliance of the
many. For how long do we allow it to
continue?
Posts
3 comments:
To answer your last question - until we get Levison II and a fair and balanced press who will hold the f'inancial sector responsible for the deficit and expose the untruth behind austerity policies - forever and a day.
I'm afraid I don't think Leveson 2 - or even a whole series of Leveson type reports - is going to get to grips with the issue I'm highlighting here, which is that most of the media serves the ends of the elite who own the power and wealth, not least because the media moguls are part of that elite.
quite right there John. Levison reports and similar antics only serve to shift power around from one clique of vested interests to another. Many of our present problems are the accumulated burden of assorted actions that have occured over 50 years or so. The crash of 2007/08 was itself a consequence of those prior events but what made it so different was the ease with which the financial institutions suckered the government of the day into propping up the entire shambles without having to accept imposition of any significant conditions. Then in 2010 along comes the compliant Cameron and his bandit mate George (with the muppet Clegg in tow !)and they proceed to shift the burden of recovery by "cost cutting" onto those who could least afford it ! Instead of charging DWP with the task of shutting down the benefit frauds they elected to call all recipients fraudsters and set about cutting their funding dramatically. Same goes for public services in general although there has been ample scope for major accounting/consulting firms to cream off scarce funds selling spurious advice to local authorities and health services. We can go on and on .... but by now I'm sure you get my drift ! Diversion of funds on a massive scale with burden of costs and losses placed on the public purse while corporate bodies slink off with the profits. Nice work if you can get it.
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