Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:05 am
The American establishment have very cleverly undermined the power of the workers by engineering a situation where socialism is a four letter word, thereby clowns like Simple are participating in their own oppression.
Whilst they blame immigrants, blacks, Mexicans, and Democrats the elites are laughing all the way to the bank, ending everything that has been gained since 1900 working rights, sick pay, pensions, -- its all going, going gone.
I think that what you have written makes a certain sense but that some clarification is needed.
You are very right to say that *the establishment* exercises control over the discourse, and always tries to control the terms of discourse. And it also is true that the American establishment (industrial capital, etc.) takes hard stands against organized labor and against providing many of the benefits that are more fair and certainly better for the workers, their families, etc.
And it is also fair to say that the notion of 'worker's rights' and 'benefits' and what makes a working person's life better and more tolerable is associated with 'socialism' and 'communism' and that working people are often tricked by those elites in the establishment so as not to be able to distinguish well their real interests. So they are manipulated in ways that end up screwing themselves.
So far so good.
But the same 'elites' use immigration, and obviously the flood of illegal immigrants from the South, to lower the cost of labor. This works against the indigenous worker, obviously, and against organized labor which has always opposed immigrant labor if it displaces indigenous labor, weakens the worker's position, etc.
There is also the aspect of flooding the country with many many millions of people who come not to participate as citizens, but as people looking for financial opportunity. Often they maintain their *cultural identities* and do not seem to want to *become Americans*. And this is something I can attest to. One because I have lived very close to immigrant communities in the States (mostly Mexican but Mesoamerican generally), and I now live in Colombia and know dozens of people who have spoken of their experience as immigrants, often illegal (working under the table or with a false SS number).
So another problem is the way the demographic shift leads to a sort of denaturing of the country. Something to be concerned about.
I am curious what you think of
this particular expose (unsure what to call it) by Tucker Carlson. It seems to me
sui generis. It is nothing at all, in any sense, like former Republican propaganda. It takes aim at vulture capitalists who undermine not just the stability of a given worker but entire communities. I have to admit that I am unable to place this in any ideological camp that I am familiar with. It is classically 'progressive' (in the original American sense of the word).
It is kind of mind-bending.
It seems very very true that there are deep institutional battles going on in the US today. It is very hard to *see* clearly what is going on. Vast power is engaged in struggles with other vast powers. Everything seems obscured and difficult to sort through.
And the American Left? Once they were the ones who stood behind the American worker and the American worker family. They were anti-war generally, pro-community, deeply suspicious of capital interests, critical of *corporations* and the power exerted by corporations over government. But now? The roles seem like they are reversing.
What in the heck does the Democrat Party stand for? I am unable to discern.
So how do we sort through all of this?