Post by @GeofCox@climatejustice.social

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 7 hr. ago

It seems that in many people's minds, the political right has successfully linked their experience of decline in living standards and economic and social security with immigration. This link is a fiction - but meanwhile the left's true account of decline - that it's about a massive transfer of wealth from the public, and the public sector, to wealthy corporations and individuals - fails to cut through. Why ?

While the left itself sometimes fails to focus on the experience of decline and what is really behind it, I think the main problem is the sheer weight of centrist politics and mainstream media coverage. They avoid exploration of the fundamental economics of capitalism, but repeatedly focus on immigration.

It's important to understand that whether an individual news report is good or bad is not so important - what matters is that immigration is in the news so often, creating the impression that it is the key issue.

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Andrea Brancatelli

@skeyby@punk.kitchen 3 hr. ago

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social

Easy said: because people would rather embrace a movement that tells them that they are "momentarily poor because of xxxx but they could get richer somehow" rather than a movement that tells them that wealth must be shared equally.

People don't won't equality, actually right now people don't either want peace, how can you sell leftist idea?

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 2 hr. ago

@skeyby

I don't think the left does tell people that wealth must be shared equally - and if it did it would be a mistake.

The left in fact quite rightly emphasises the need for everybody's basic needs to be met - decent food, housing, clothing, education and health - and the need for economic and social security, and a future for their children - and that this is all achievable through fair tax and business regulation arrangements.

It's also true that more equal societies work better, and this should be the direction of travel - but there's no need to talk about, much less actually demand income/wealth equality in the foreseeable future.

Juan Per¢ent,🇲🇽 🍉

@dacig@mastodon.social 6 hr. ago

@GeofCox The media and politicians on the right and the other right (aka center) have been very successful at tying crime-insecurity to race and immigration. By repetition and cherry picking stories, data.
Here in Sweden TV news often start with a crime story. You'd think we're drowning in crime, which feels at odds with my own perception.
To me the failure of the left to tie declining living standards to growing inequality as data shows, comes down to captured press and politicians, and racism

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 5 hr. ago

@dacig

I think most people in the political centre and mainstream media are just as deceived and powerless as ordinary voters.

They are the victims of structural changes in the media - its atomisation and internationalisation into thousands of channels, facilitating unaccountable ownership by wealthy corporations and individuals.

They are victims of their own outdated professional standards, such as preference for the 'televisual' (dramatic scenes of immigrants on beaches, rather then debt slowly bleeding out local communities), or a version of impartiality that emphasises the presentation of opposing sides - as if both are acting in good faith - rather than the pursuit of truth without fear or favour.

They are the victims of ideology, not in the sense they understand it (political bias), but in the Althusserian sense: 'an imaginary relationship to real conditions'. The reality we experience - the decline in living standards and economic and social security - is understood not as it really is, but in the false light of immigration.