thread

TRIAL BY MEDIA

1. Remember PeoplesVote & all the millions of people who supported it? Or a few hundred thousand if you care to delve a bit further than the bs the media dish out.

2. I'm torn to be honest:
a) One half of me tends to think the media are having a strop because millions of normies like you & me have a voice. They'd love the social media platforms all to themselves, with only a button which they could preload with 1000's of clicks.

3.
b) The other half of me thinks we're witnessing something very dangerous. Propaganda on the scale of Tokyo Rose. Just as the PeoplesVote & Remain cohort pushed a narrative that they were the front runners in the contest, we saw the same tactics used in the US election polls.

4. The polling firms had Biden miles ahead.

Yet the more thoughtful interviews I listened to from British journalists out in the US told a different story, with ample support for Trump.

5. Voter suppression is a serious harm to democracy. Trying to convince voters a particular camp has far more support than another in order to compel people to go with the masses. How much success it has is hard to tell, but 'they' wouldn't do it if they didn't think it worked.

6. I guess when the dust settles on the US elections normal people will start to question reliability of big media. And it's what happens then? The honeymoon is over & there comes an acknowledgement that a large slice of society has had a raw deal for years & needs help.

7. It's the same pattern we have seen with the EU. The money spent on projects in metro areas that push working classes out the way due to gentrification & being priced out the market. A plastic plaque proudly boasting EU funding made it all possible.

8. There's an embarrassment & hatred for those people fed by a constant narrative of snobbery & distaste. The man who worked in a factory on £30k a year with overtime, then worked in a warehouse for an agency on minimum wage, lucky to scrape £18k.

9. The difficulty is there's rather a lot of 'them' & they're pissed off. Push them to the back of the queue again at your peril. This is why Trump had a following in those 'forgotten' areas. He acknowledged the 'deplorables' & the issues of the post industrial states.

10. We have some terrible legacies from lack of forethought. The climate 'thing' can be traced back to the 90's. Decisions were made to clean up the air/waters by shoving manufacturing overseas. But no-one had much idea what could replace those jobs & industries.

11. I saw it here when the pits closed. I saw it in the 90's recession when a local engineering firm, the town's biggest employer, was sold to a Japanese firm & all but the precision work was moved abroad. The local clothing factory that made trousers for M & S closed too.

12. Warehouses & call centres took their place to a certain extent. The former employ mostly E European workers because they're compliant, the latter has a quick turnover of staff because the job is stressful, low paid & soul destroying.

13. We have a massive problem. There's little point in cleaning up the environment to makes the world a better place if half the population can't get a decent job. 'Yes Johnny you're a depressed, unhealthy failure, but you have a shiny new cycle lane so off you peddle'.

14. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny.

I'm not sure where this post truth, post industrial society is heading. We have so many issues that no-one wishes to address.

15. We have a media that tries to drown out the voices of dissenters of their chosen views. We have a gaping hole for discussion being filled by those with no real interest, understanding or answers.

Just an echo chamber of clowns to the left of us.