Slavoj Zizek on Trump & Fake News

[Lat-Literal]

The one thing you can guarantee about the removal of benefits is that they are never likely to return. Generation Wars as they are favoured by Blairites and Cleggites and the astonishingly under performing Conservative David "Two Brains" Willetts is only the latest scam in a long historical series of scams which argue for redistribution on something other than financial need. It may seem enticing to those who are in their 20s and 30s now for today's 40s, 50s and 60s to share what has still not been taken away from them a bit via Government. No governments will deliver on that one. In truth, and rather sadly, the Welfare State has been usurped to a considerable degree by today's older generations so that it's families who are in the strongest position to redistribute, ie to their families. That is, those who did work and were lucky to have dropped out of the womb when they did.

No one would deny that the situation is complex. Some older folk will question whether it is right to describe pensions as benefits at all. There is an argument there. I do not wholly agree with it but I know where they are coming from in that respect. It is helpful to Governments to describe them as such when wanting to point out just how much money goes into pensions relative to all "benefits". There is also whether we like it or not some distortion created by immigration which impacts on state support in a way that makes it more difficult to argue for universal benefits. When x was British born and worked for 40 years while y came to Britain in 2007 and has worked for 10 years, then actually it is difficult to be rational in defending y's right to claim equal or greater benefits at working age. That has become so significant in the national psyche it could be called the Corbyn Conundrum.

On the other side of the coin, it really gets my goat, when told how the young are struggling, to hear news too of the current price of an average house. That is a deliberate distortion caused by political bias, news bias and over-expectation in the population. Back in the day, the starting point was a broken down hut that cost tuppence and when a mortgage was provided for it everyone held a party albeit subject to food rations. To my mind, the earlier situation was appropriate and right. That's the maximum entitlement.

Those whose parents are cleaners and have risen to the giddy heights of ice cream salesmen never complain about the price of buying a house. They know that such a thing is beyond them just as in their families that has always been the case. No, the ones who complain are the trainee doctors and trainee lawyers - sorry - whose own parents were similar, albeit that house prices were cheaper and interest rates were indeed higher in their day. They already have more than genuinely poor people of whatever age. It seems they are disgruntled that they can't afford a three-bed detached in the best part of town close to its centre. Convenient for work and nightlife and car parks and public transport to airports. New Labour or Liberal until 44 when they can afford to be Conservative, a position they will maintain for the rest of their lives. I am not buying into it and never will do.

[teamsaint]

I'll swap mine for yours …

I really don't think we should go there, but since you mention it, part of the swap package will have to be state retirement age.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38948369

[Lat-Literal]

On the substance of the question, again, and specifically whether statistical projections are real news, it isn't just "unmentionables" like world wars that are not factored in. It is also "positive unknowns". No one knows what technology or mineral could lead to a gold rush. It seems implausible but 20th Century history tells us it shouldn't be dismissed.

[jean]

...When x was British born and worked for 40 years while y came to Britain in 2007 and has worked for 10 years, then actually it is difficult to be rational in defending y's right to claim equal or greater benefits at working age.

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

[Lat-Literal]

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

Thank you - a fair enough point.

But historically, the first man didn't necessarily get a penny, in child benefits for example, although that first man would ordinarily now be over 90.

Actually, housing support may have broader relevance.

I see from the real news in my newsletter that there is a surplus of dwellings in the UK of 1.4 m relative to the number of households (i.e. groups of people needing ‘dwellings’).

[Serial_Apologist]

There is also whether we like it or not some distortion created by immigration which impacts on state support in a way that makes it more difficult to argue for universal benefits. When x was British born and worked for 40 years while y came to Britain in 2007 and has worked for 10 years, then actually it is difficult to be rational in defending y's right to claim equal or greater benefits at working age. That has become so significant in the national psyche it could be called the Corbyn Conundrum.

Only if the problem is viewed from the goldfish perspective of the nation state, when in actual fact the globalised world was and remains part of the ruling class's project, however convenient the temporary gambit of patriotic populisms, an essential prerequisite for maintaining competitive profitability as the basis for whatever they are prepared (under the pressure of "the left" to nutshell things) to share out, and for reasons of ensuring mass consent to their rule. All true wealth - right back to slavery - is in the built world we see around us; the fact has become obscured by its own complexity, so that only inflation and the periodic overproduction endemic in lack of oversight and planning euphemised as recession remain as salient indicators of how much currency of any kind is just "funny money", wrapped up in international currency and stock gambling, the knife at the throat in every takeover and re-location. The globalised world economy has suited them, preaching down from on high or getting their underlings to do the dirty, as long as it was free to operate and too hard for even the now-maligned experts to scrutinise; now that its consequences linger on unresolved, 9 years on from the explosion of inner contradictions known as the banking crisis, they use their ultimate back-up, the far right, just as they did after the Depression of the 1930s, to pen everyone into the limited mental framework of nation stateism, nationalism, from which to find some false sense of solidarity in an inimical, shrinking world of their own creation and benefitting.

It's as well to get the framework right before we all go off on one, and abiding sources aplenty from which one can make a start: the eco-wisdom found in many spiritual traditions worldwide that scientific evidence corroborates as good a place as ever, or the socialist traditions emphasising common inheritance. There may not be much that can be done about it, with the organised working class that was once the Corbyn base disassembled and caught up in the consequences of its defeats 30 years ago, but sanity finally lies in honestly not falling for their lies.

[Lat-Literal]

Only if the problem is viewed from the goldfish perspective of the nation state, when in actual fact the globalised world was and remains part of the ruling class's project, however convenient the temporary gambit of patriotic populisms, an essential prerequisite for maintaining competitive profitability as the basis for whatever they are prepared (under the pressure of "the left" to nutshell things) to share out, and for reasons of ensuring mass consent to their rule. All true wealth - right back to slavery - is in the built world we see around us; the fact has become obscured by its own complexity, so that only inflation and the periodic overproduction endemic in lack of oversight and planning euphemised as recession remain as salient indicators of how much currency of any kind is just "funny money", wrapped up in international currency and stock gambling, the knife at the throat in every takeover and re-location. The globalised world economy has suited them, preaching down from on high or getting their underlings to do the dirty, as long as it was free to operate and too hard for even the now-maligned experts to scrutinise; now that its consequences linger on unresolved, 9 years on from the explosion of inner contradictions known as the banking crisis, they use their ultimate back-up, the far right, just as they did after the Depression of the 1930s, to pen everyone into the limited mental framework of nation stateism, nationalism, from which to find some false sense of solidarity in an inimical, shrinking world of their own creation and benefitting.

It's as well to get the framework right before we all go off on one, and abiding sources aplenty from which one can make a start: the eco-wisdom found in many spiritual traditions worldwide that scientific evidence corroborates as good a place as ever, or the socialist traditions emphasising common inheritance. There may not be much that can be done about it, with the organised working class that was once the Corbyn base disassembled and caught up in the consequences of its defeats 30 years ago, but sanity finally lies in honestly not falling for their lies.

I agree but I am writing on the basis that the UK is supposedly the fifth biggest economy and supposedly deep in debt while not dissimilar countries are supposedly in a worse position. If all practical dialogue has to take place in the supposed consensus that the greatest power is in the nation via the voter then there isn't much anyone can do about it.

I do think there are nuances to be built in to any common model. For example, I have absolutely no idea why Mrs Merkel should favour wholly open borders. Her much criticised policy of enabling young immigrants into Germany was wholly right. In economic terms, the demographics there are appalling just as they are in France. Here they are less so. That is to say in the UK as a whole. If I were living in a wholly independent Scotland, I would be very happy indeed with an EU open borders policy. It makes practical sense there.

Not that I think it is the main issue or the second issue or the tenth issue. I would like to get back to the position where less money was in the hands of international big business. I spoke earlier on in this thread about media forms becoming countries in themselves with biases. That wouldn't be novel. We already have it with the private economic global state.

On another point re accuracy, is it now true that all major UK parties favour a non-privatised NHS? If so, pardon me for being confused. It must have happened when I blinked.

[Lat-Literal]

Going through the early hours the night before before last watching BBC Parliament's coverage of the Select Committees - it is on a loop of some sort - a few things struck me.

One, some of the people called before the Committees are there because they represent groups that have made themselves important. That is essentially their only credentials as far as I can see and they aren't simply there but everywhere else. Two such groups are Open Europe and Migration Watch. In general terms, the groups emerge without wholly transparent financial backing and are full of pushy young things or pushy old things. It is the money and the push that gets them where they are. Secondly, there are a number of different types again of all ages who are genuine and surprisingly impressive. They too are in groups - universities, "on the ground" action groups, the odd union etc. Those who spoke variously about the nuances of the options on immigration policy in the future, the Polish experience of hate crime, the recent fragmentation of the far right and the radical right and fake news media outlets were all well-informed, enlightening and interesting although I suppose I do find such policy areas more interesting than many other policy areas.

There were also a couple of fairly contradictory thoughts. The first of these was that even in that dry, evidence-based, and often unbiased context preferred opinions are being reinforced so that they become seen as truths even beyond how the mass media have determined such things to be true. For example, almost everyone appears to believe that most of the public are far happier with high income immigrants and foreign students than low income immigrants. This is ostensibly on the grounds that we need the first categories of people while the second drive down wages for "ordinary people" or prevent them getting work. That does come from the general public, a section of which is also ill-at-ease with large numbers of immigrants in their neighbourhoods, but to trace it back further would lead to the mass media. These are their lines principally because it is what the upper tier wants. Consequently, when opinion polls are undertaken over time they show that this is increasingly the public's position. But no one has really spoken to them about what it says of an education system that fails to produce enough people to rise to the top or how in real truth income has been least affected by immigration at the very top and the very lowest levels. That is because of the national wage and rises in the threshold at which point people start paying tax. Nor have they been told that the majority of immigrants in the care sector are non EU immigrants and always have been or that the state is actively concerned about terrorism as much from political extremists as it is from extreme Muslim groups.

The other was that the impact of watching the Select Committee sessions over time, even if the participants are sometimes merely reinforcing new top tier led mass media truths, albeit on occasions inadvertently, is to acquire such a wide range of facts that it is almost impossible for anyone rational to have a cast iron position on anything. As an exercise, it works against personal bias so that it should be a key component of Prevent. It is also more rewarding and even settling than the news because it doesn't seek to play on people's emotions. Consequently, one thinks of a world where the news might be replaced by coverage of affairs in Parliament, Congress and so on and it could be conceivably better for it.

[Tetrachord]

I've pointed out earlier in this thread that when pension ages were first established, no-one was expected to live much beyond ten tears after reaching pension age. Men in particular would probably live for less.

But I propose to live for at least thirty years after my 60th birthday. Is it really fair for the taxpayer to have to pay my pension for all that time?

I am reading the interesting comments in this thread. Am wondering why you don't seem to have much in the way of private superannuation in the UK? Good luck with the 90 year projection. Everything starts to go wrong with health after age 60, from my experience. I certainly am not interested in 30 more years of this health rubbish.

[Lat-Literal]

I am reading the interesting comments in this thread. Am wondering why you don't seem to have much in the way of private superannuation in the UK? Good luck with the 90 year projection. Everything starts to go wrong with health after age 60, from my experience. I certainly am not interested in 30 more years of this health rubbish.

And earlier!

I hope that you have an answer from someone to your question.

My only indirect personal experience of UK superannunation systems is in local government established well prior to 1990.

One thing that is clear is that Breitbart and the like are not in the business of fake news as such.

They do this sort of thing instead, albeit in their own way:

BNP Fail To Win at Stoke:

Labour 7,853
UKIP 5,233
Conservative 5,154
Liberal Democrat 2,083
Green 294
Barbara Fielding 137
Monster Raving Loony 127
BNP 124
Christian Peoples 109
Mohammad Akram 56

Majority 2,620

[french frank]

Not quite 'fake news', but I was reading this article and felt my indignation rising against this 'stupid' GP for her views on healthy eating (5-a-day is too many; 2-a-day is more realistic) and smoking (don't tell patients to give up). She seemed to be undermining what health experts had been saying. But when you carry on reading, it seems that there is no difference of opinion. What she was saying was simply more nuanced: that GPs should consider what would be best to say to individual patients.

Given that journalists know that readers will read headlines and opening paragraphs, and look at any picture and caption, but very often don't read the whole story (that's why stories are constructed the way they are), this story seemed to me (but it may strike others differently) to be setting her up as a dissenting voice. It's very easy to get wrong impressions from press stories, without it necessarily being intended. [But sometimes it is intended]

[Lat-Literal]

Not quite 'fake news', but I was reading this article and felt my indignation rising against this 'stupid' GP for her views on healthy eating (5-a-day is too many; 2-a-day is more realistic) and smoking (don't tell patients to give up). She seemed to be undermining what health experts had been saying. But when you carry on reading, it seems that there is no difference of opinion. What she was saying was simply more nuanced: that GPs should consider what would be best to say to individual patients.

Given that journalists know that readers will read headlines and opening paragraphs, and look at any picture and caption, but very often don't read the whole story (that's why stories are constructed the way they are), this story seemed to me (but it may strike others differently) to be setting her up as a dissenting voice. It's very easy to get wrong impressions from press stories, without it necessarily being intended. [But sometimes it is intended]

November 2016 - and less newsworthy than Dame Sally on one glass of wine.

I could build in half a dozen additional nuances as I am not sure that it is accurately nuanced enough. Still, nuance is a form of dissent - in policy terms the most rational and effective form of dissent - and in this case from blunt edged tools like tick box approaches geared principally towards a surgery getting brownie points. The problem is that nuanced messages don't play well in the media and they don't reach the public in a way that simplistic cost-cutting headlines do. This will be May's challenge broadly. But what I'd also say is that she is sounding like May's Conservatives with it rather than New Labour or UKIP which - I can hardly believe I am writing this - is to be welcomed along with the subtleties incorporated. It makes sense for the profession to work with a Government rather than following it and defending it or being at loggerheads with a Nanny that isn't a Nanny.

(just one of the six - I don't think it needs individual tailoring which could be implied but what is needed in training is education on socio-economic groups and their backgrounds)

[Jazzrook]

The sinister forces behind Trump & Brexit:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/us-billionaire-mercer-helped-back-brexit

[Serial_Apologist]

Ken Loach on Jeremy Corbyn and the media brexit coverage:

http://www.thecanary.co./2017/02/21/...ay-wants-hear/

[jean]

Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump:

https://twitter.com/2020VoteHillary/status/836092216934178817