8 ms·

America's vieux riche spend exorbitant resources to muddy the waters of classicism and racism to prevent collective action. Look at the parent companies that ow

by tyjen 4y ago

America's vieux riche spend exorbitant resources to muddy the waters of classicism and racism to prevent collective action. Look at the parent companies that own large swathes of media assets and look at what they push for information. Class issues are often reframed as race issues to disrupt collective action. This isn't to suggest there isn't residual overlap from historical racism, but there is a clear intention to prime Americans to believe most issues stem from racism rather than classism. Which leads to the issue you point out, Americans lack knowledge of classism, and I would suggest that they're overexposed to framed racism to avoid acknowledging classism. The unfortunate consequence is developing political policy solutions that do not solve the underlying problems, which create additional problems. This seems ideal for vieux riche, who are insulated from the problems. Not to mention, that you generally require significant amounts of money to successfully run for public office. The rich are the gatekeepers of American society and want to maintain it that way, even if it causes chaos for people lower on the social hierarchy.

renonce 4y ago
> Class issues are often reframed as race issues to disrupt collective action. How does reframing class issues as race issues disrupt collective action? Race issues lead to protests like Black Lives Matter, for example.
prirun 4y ago
[flagged]
- WJW 4y ago
  I like a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but is it really so hard to believe that people could object to abortion on religious grounds? I agree that anyone rich would have little problem flying to a state where abortion is legal though.
  - zoolily 4y ago
    The time period in the article is too short. However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition. They created pamphlets, movies, meetings, etc. to make abortion a religious issue. As their propaganda campaign developed, you could watch abortion spread as an issue in Protestant churches through the 1980s and finally become an issue for the majority of white evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant by the early 1990s.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition. I really doubt that the pro-life movement was deliberately orchestrated by a Republican-party conspiracy, as you seem to imply. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans identified a developing organic movement as political opportunity, which they then seized upon.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        It totally was. I watched it all play out. The cynicism was breathtaking to behold. But it was not a conspiracy. It was just a plan. Conspiracy is collusion to commit a crime. Cynical politics is not a crime.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    That has no bearing on what just transpired.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  This is a tantalizing conspiracy theory. However, the event dates do not match up. The conservatives have been trying to overturn Roe for much longer than this year, and Amy Coney Barrett who started serving in late 2020. She was clearly appointed by the conservatives to help overturn Roe. The current unionization push started to really push steam in 2021, which occurred afterwards.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't." That begs the question. Beware of trying to fit and squeeze every phenomenon in the world into your own prejudices. My experience with the pro-life crowd is that they really consider abortion on par with murder and that is what motivates them to fight on. Even in a country like mine, where abortion is widely accepted and pro-life positions won't help you electorally or socially at all.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    They also are against gun control, and generally favor allowing police to murder freely, provided the victims have brown-enough skin.. So, no: their politics are very, very far from consistent.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      Everyone's is. Politics is tribal, not logical. Take every single political tribe in the history of humanity, starting with Ancient Greek city polities and ending with modern democracies, Russia and the Islamic state, and examine their beliefs. Contradictions are rife. For me, the lesson is that if you value your integrity, you shouldn't join a political tribe. ANY of them. Green, red, blue, yellow, these are all a loyalty-first, thought-maybe-later groups.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  > Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't. What I think they do like is having plenty of workers available who have no choice but to accept bad working conditions, low pay, multiple temp jobs without insurance, etc. Yes, definitely. Do you a very homogeneous social group or something? The alternative would be that all pro-lifers are conniving bad faith actors. I shouldn’t have to say more for that to seem very suspicious and certainly incorrect. Pro-choice and pro-life positions are both quite logically consistent, internally. Try and reckon with that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    - tmn 4y ago
      That’s fine, but you’re a using a bad faith interpretation. You just admitted as much. The point isn’t that you’re wrong. It’s that they aren’t thinking what you’re projecting them to think.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      It seems like you think you and those that share your positions are not the only one that wants what's best for the world. I assure you that's incorrect. I'm pro-choice, but this side of the debate is easily tempted to oversimplify and assume pro-lifers are evil idiots.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        How am I over simplifying? There is simple, material, demonstrable harm to women from banning healthcare. No one was going around terminating 36 week fetuses for the fun of it. Harming another living person purely for your assumptions (religious beliefs) qualifies as evil intent. This is a highly complex topic that is between highly educated doctors who would know what the consequences are and the women to those consequences are happening.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Religious Republicans (and many religious Democrats) very much do care about abortion. Republicans in general just use it as a wedge issue to wall off the base, just like Democrats in general who also use it as one of their top 3 wedge issues. Our current President pushed for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    and hillary clinton ran with an anti-abortion mate
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
The narrative that America’s issues stem from socioeconomic classism instead of racism is just as biased and full of assumptions that it might as well be centrist propaganda. From a non-American looking outside, America clearly has both, and nothing screams American stupidity more than its people debating which of the two is the root cause of their suffering, as if the debate in itself matters and as if it’s supposed to be a contest of who’s more oppressed. The only thing that this whole debate does is for classism and racism issues to cancel each other out and for people protesting socioeconomic inequality to gloss over the issues of racism (I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America). People who believe that racism is a class issue can’t even explain how it is so, or how come an affluent African-American man can still be discriminated against in affluent circles on the basis of his skin color. This is not where the discourse should be headed.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  > I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America. I have. Mostly college kids in private colleges; they're in a bubble and only exposed to other well-off kids, which means that none of them have experience with classism and therefore they can dismiss it, whereas racism is a problem for rich POC and therefore, because it can affect their classmates, it's a huge issue (just like homophobia, transphobia, and sexism). But it happens outside of that as well. One example is the framing of what happened in Flint as a solely racial issue, when the city is poor as hell (I made 28k and I believe I was in the top 20% of household income for the city) and about half its residents are white. The people making those arguments had never been to Flint and wouldn't have cared about the white students I saw who were so poor they only had a single set of clothes. Flint wouldn't have happened to a city of rich black people. (Of course, the fact that the city proper has more POC is partially due to the impacts of racism so the disproportionate impact is caused by racism and I wouldn't deny that). Like how I see racism mostly dismissed from people who live in poor, white majority areas: It's really hard to understand the pervasiveness of racism if you're in that situation. (And from racists, of course, just like classists dismiss classism.)
  - 4y ago
jaredklewis 4y ago
I’m quite doubtful about your theory that there is a conspiracy of wealthy Americans to reframe issues as race issues. It’s plausible, but without evidence I find it counter intuitive. What are we supposed to garner from looking at the parent companies of media assets? Time Warner owns CNN, Comcast owns nbc, etc… so what? Much simpler explanation is that “Critical race theory” and similar veins of thought which view issues in terms of race at the expense of class were not born out of the media but from academia. Most journalists are highly educated and thus often have an academic viewpoint. Anecdotal, but just from journalists I know, they are universally idealists, and I suspect that is common for journalists. The idea that they’re publishing narratives for the super rich seems far fetched.
- brainphreeze 4y ago
  $$$
- relaxing 4y ago
  It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

by tyjen 4y ago

renonce 4y ago

> Class issues are often reframed as race issues to disrupt collective action. How does reframing class issues as race issues disrupt collective action? Race issues lead to protests like Black Lives Matter, for example.

prirun 4y ago

[flagged]

WJW 4y ago
I like a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but is it really so hard to believe that people could object to abortion on religious grounds? I agree that anyone rich would have little problem flying to a state where abortion is legal though.
- zoolily 4y ago
  The time period in the article is too short. However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition. They created pamphlets, movies, meetings, etc. to make abortion a religious issue. As their propaganda campaign developed, you could watch abortion spread as an issue in Protestant churches through the 1980s and finally become an issue for the majority of white evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant by the early 1990s.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > However, when I grew up, abortion wasn't an issue for Protestants, which was the dominant religion where I lived. They considered it a Catholic issue. Abortion became an issue after Republicans began to implement their southern strategy, raising it as an issue to bring evangelists and fundamentalists into their religious right coalition. I really doubt that the pro-life movement was deliberately orchestrated by a Republican-party conspiracy, as you seem to imply. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans identified a developing organic movement as political opportunity, which they then seized upon.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      It totally was. I watched it all play out. The cynicism was breathtaking to behold. But it was not a conspiracy. It was just a plan. Conspiracy is collusion to commit a crime. Cynical politics is not a crime.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  That has no bearing on what just transpired.
spicymaki 4y ago
This is a tantalizing conspiracy theory. However, the event dates do not match up. The conservatives have been trying to overturn Roe for much longer than this year, and Amy Coney Barrett who started serving in late 2020. She was clearly appointed by the conservatives to help overturn Roe. The current unionization push started to really push steam in 2021, which occurred afterwards.
inglor_cz 4y ago
"Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't." That begs the question. Beware of trying to fit and squeeze every phenomenon in the world into your own prejudices. My experience with the pro-life crowd is that they really consider abortion on par with murder and that is what motivates them to fight on. Even in a country like mine, where abortion is widely accepted and pro-life positions won't help you electorally or socially at all.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  They also are against gun control, and generally favor allowing police to murder freely, provided the victims have brown-enough skin.. So, no: their politics are very, very far from consistent.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Everyone's is. Politics is tribal, not logical. Take every single political tribe in the history of humanity, starting with Ancient Greek city polities and ending with modern democracies, Russia and the Islamic state, and examine their beliefs. Contradictions are rife. For me, the lesson is that if you value your integrity, you shouldn't join a political tribe. ANY of them. Green, red, blue, yellow, these are all a loyalty-first, thought-maybe-later groups.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
> Does anyone think Republicans / conservatives actually give a shit about unborn babies? I don't. What I think they do like is having plenty of workers available who have no choice but to accept bad working conditions, low pay, multiple temp jobs without insurance, etc. Yes, definitely. Do you a very homogeneous social group or something? The alternative would be that all pro-lifers are conniving bad faith actors. I shouldn’t have to say more for that to seem very suspicious and certainly incorrect. Pro-choice and pro-life positions are both quite logically consistent, internally. Try and reckon with that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  - tmn 4y ago
    That’s fine, but you’re a using a bad faith interpretation. You just admitted as much. The point isn’t that you’re wrong. It’s that they aren’t thinking what you’re projecting them to think.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    It seems like you think you and those that share your positions are not the only one that wants what's best for the world. I assure you that's incorrect. I'm pro-choice, but this side of the debate is easily tempted to oversimplify and assume pro-lifers are evil idiots.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      How am I over simplifying? There is simple, material, demonstrable harm to women from banning healthcare. No one was going around terminating 36 week fetuses for the fun of it. Harming another living person purely for your assumptions (religious beliefs) qualifies as evil intent. This is a highly complex topic that is between highly educated doctors who would know what the consequences are and the women to those consequences are happening.
pessimizer 4y ago
Religious Republicans (and many religious Democrats) very much do care about abortion. Republicans in general just use it as a wedge issue to wall off the base, just like Democrats in general who also use it as one of their top 3 wedge issues. Our current President pushed for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  and hillary clinton ran with an anti-abortion mate

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago

The narrative that America’s issues stem from socioeconomic classism instead of racism is just as biased and full of assumptions that it might as well be centrist propaganda. From a non-American looking outside, America clearly has both, and nothing screams American stupidity more than its people debating which of the two is the root cause of their suffering, as if the debate in itself matters and as if it’s supposed to be a contest of who’s more oppressed. The only thing that this whole debate does is for classism and racism issues to cancel each other out and for people protesting socioeconomic inequality to gloss over the issues of racism (I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America). People who believe that racism is a class issue can’t even explain how it is so, or how come an affluent African-American man can still be discriminated against in affluent circles on the basis of his skin color. This is not where the discourse should be headed.

Mezzie 4y ago
> I don’t see people protesting racism invalidating the existence of socioeconomic inequality in America. I have. Mostly college kids in private colleges; they're in a bubble and only exposed to other well-off kids, which means that none of them have experience with classism and therefore they can dismiss it, whereas racism is a problem for rich POC and therefore, because it can affect their classmates, it's a huge issue (just like homophobia, transphobia, and sexism). But it happens outside of that as well. One example is the framing of what happened in Flint as a solely racial issue, when the city is poor as hell (I made 28k and I believe I was in the top 20% of household income for the city) and about half its residents are white. The people making those arguments had never been to Flint and wouldn't have cared about the white students I saw who were so poor they only had a single set of clothes. Flint wouldn't have happened to a city of rich black people. (Of course, the fact that the city proper has more POC is partially due to the impacts of racism so the disproportionate impact is caused by racism and I wouldn't deny that). Like how I see racism mostly dismissed from people who live in poor, white majority areas: It's really hard to understand the pervasiveness of racism if you're in that situation. (And from racists, of course, just like classists dismiss classism.)
- 4y ago

jaredklewis 4y ago

I’m quite doubtful about your theory that there is a conspiracy of wealthy Americans to reframe issues as race issues. It’s plausible, but without evidence I find it counter intuitive. What are we supposed to garner from looking at the parent companies of media assets? Time Warner owns CNN, Comcast owns nbc, etc… so what? Much simpler explanation is that “Critical race theory” and similar veins of thought which view issues in terms of race at the expense of class were not born out of the media but from academia. Most journalists are highly educated and thus often have an academic viewpoint. Anecdotal, but just from journalists I know, they are universally idealists, and I suspect that is common for journalists. The idea that they’re publishing narratives for the super rich seems far fetched.

brainphreeze 4y ago
$$$
relaxing 4y ago
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.