Madeleine Morris
Similarly, the indisputable success of free and compulsory education is another example of a 20th Century initiative that illustrates the positive and successful alliance between democratically elected governments and its people. Again, you can chart the rise of the middle class in the 20th C to it.
And it is no surprise that authoritarian forces within those countries and outside them are also busy trying to destroy public school systems, public libraries, and state education programs. 3/
Madeleine Morris
I do not imagine that there has been a globally organized effort on the part of some singular shadowy villain to erode public health, public education or, for that matter, legal systems. All of these systems stood in the way of making greater profits, too.
What is clear to me is that these hard-won, massively successful instances of social reform and betterment have become obstacles to both authoritarians and profiteers. Their interests have coalesced in the destruction of them. 6/
Madeleine Morris
I do not think it is a coincidence that great social movements, like labour rights, womens rights, and racial equality arose in the wake of stable public health and public education initiatives.
When a population starts to become healthy and educated, they organize to demand standards of fairness off their governments.
Why would Trump or Putin or Musk want that? What is the easiest way to rid themselves of those threats? Make people sick, ignorant and hungry. And make them hate the other. 5/
Madeleine Morris
Both public health systems and public education systems are examples of stable and reliable compacts between the state and its people. They required the cooperation of both entities - government administration and taxpayer funding.
Who would want to destroy these kinds of cooperative endeavors?
The proponents of a kind of neo-feudalism who see no profit in this system, only limits on their power. A sick, poor population is far more malleable and manipulable. 4/
AJ Sadauskas
@DaRC_Fantom @Remittancegirl @Tattooed_Mummy It's not just authoritarian states that have spent decades honing their propaganda skills.
News Corp was founded in 1918. Australia's most powerful industrialist of the time, William Lawrence Baillieu, became concerned about the influence of a union-owned newspaper among the workers of a mine he owned in Broken Hill.
(The name Baillieu will be familiar to anyone reading this in Melbourne. Ted Baillieu, a recent stare premier of Victoria, is a descendant of the Myer–Baillieu family.)
It was designed to spread pro-corporate propaganda to break the union's influence. Laurence eventually put a journalist named Keith Murdoch in charge.
https://theconversation.com/the-secret-history-of-news-corp-a-media-empire-built-on-spreading-propaganda-116992
Keith's son, Rupert Murdoch, eventually took over the business, which is now run by his grandson, Lachlan.
So Fox News, the Wall St Journal, the UK Sun, etc, is basically the product of 100 years of anti-union propaganda.
On top of that, you have the entire public relations industry, which is basically corporate propaganda.
It's the PR industry that made Elon look like an environmentalist visionary instead of the spoilt son of a wealthy Apartheid-era businessman.
It also spread doubts about whether toxic fossil fuels are cooking the planet.
When it comes to propaganda, there's no place like home...
Earl Dave of Sudseax 🖖
@Remittancegirl @Tattooed_Mummy
I think social media has accelerated communication, much like the broadsheets did, and there are nation states with many years of expertise in propaganda that have used that knowledge to manipulate the (perhaps socially corrupt) algorithms.
I say socially corrupt because hate sells, which makes money. Of course then there's TikTok which is a vehicle of the Chinese state.
Madeleine Morris
@Tattooed_Mummy I fear that Social Media might simply accelerate the sequence of events.
Tats 🇬🇧🫖
@Remittancegirl :thisisfinefire:
Madeleine Morris
@Tattooed_Mummy There was. The great depression followed, and then... WWII.
Tats 🇬🇧🫖
@Remittancegirl I'm sure I read there was similar during the massive flu epidemic, of course there wasn't social media then.
Madeleine Morris
I suspect that decades from now, history will point to the Covid pandemic as the tipping point - a time when, disoriented by the threat and craving both distraction and a sense of certainty, a huge percentage of the population were uniquely vulnerable to being persuaded, via lies and conspiracy theories, that the most admirable aspects of social democratic initiatives were a threat to their 'freedom' and 'intolerable government overreach'.
7/
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