Belligerent Savant » 08 Feb 2022 14:12 wrote:Joe Hillshoist » Mon Feb 07, 2022 11:03 pm wrote:Belligerent Savant » 08 Feb 2022 13:10 wrote:.
Do you believe the media in the U.S. in today's climate is more Right-leaning, or Left-leaning (once more: I use the words "left" and "right" here as currently defined in mainstream culture)?
Why would you do that?
Nothing about the media is left wing and by using mainstream definitions you are playing into their bullshit matrix of control.
You've legitimised it.
You might call those people Liberal or Progressive, not left, they aren't synonymous. Far from it.
CNN is right wing.
NYT is right wing.
Mainstream media is right wing. End of story.
Yes, CNN, NYT and mainstream media is indeed right wing in the more traditional sense. Agreed.
But I'm not playing into anything. I'm having an open conversation in this sandbox called RI. I never typed that I in any way subscribe to any of the categorizations as currently defined by the mainstream, or accept any of these current definitions in my day-to-day dealings/interactions.
Unfortunately, many others do. There are many that proudly self-identify as "Liberals" that read NYT and NPR daily, religiously, and consider themselves LEFTISTS.
[As one example: a friend of mine, or perhaps more accurately, a former college roommate. We've kept in touch sporadically, and over the past couple years have engaged in ~weekly conversations (mostly via text message) about the latest covid-related hysteria. He's a 'public interest attorney' that works in NYC. Very pro-mask, very pro-mandate. very pro-vaccine passport, yet totally ok with the problems this creates for minorities and working classes in NYC, or rather, he refuses to address these contradictions; ignores them outright. Trusts the 'experts'. He would LAUGH at you and consider you delusional (blasphemous, really) for referring to the NYT as "Right wing". It's his primary source for covid news, along with NPR. THIS is the typical modern day "liberal". He's far from alone in expressing such sentiments within the broader NYC region. There's even more of his type out in Cali, Portland and Seattle, among other 'left-leaning' urban areas. How did this happen?]
In Australia the Liberal Party was the party of small business, inclusiveness and other "Liberal" ideas. They ended the "White Australia" policy, enabled and held the 1967 referendum that counted indigenous australians as citizens, promoted land rights legislation and the acceptance of Vietnamese boat people after 1975.
They were also the party of the Tory ruling class.
The other party are Labor. They were formed from Unions in the 1890s. They were actually left wing. Back in the day.
Today the Liberal Party are far right authoritarians who dog whistle to racists and sexists and the Labor Party are closer to the traditional Liberal Party, maybe further to the right on some issues.
Everything has moved to the right.
Its similar to what you are talking about with your mate in NYC ... How did it happen?
I reckon working class people had good lives and could afford to send their kids to Uni/College, which they thought would give them better lives. But all this did was bloat the bureaucratic haute bourgeois types, kids of the former working class people who sent their kids to college. Who make up the "liberal" class. They don't have any connection to the struggle of working people. They identify with the ruling class (Not the rich upper class types necessarily) as much as with anyone else. This should be a good thing - anyone can be part of the ruling class right? But it doesn't work that way in practice. The problem being that the ruling class are, by definition, arseholes who try and tell everyone else what to do and how to live their lives.
That isn't the whole story but its part of it.
