Thursday, May 24, 2012

Bangers and Mash

Had lunch with an old mate this week following which I had a much better understanding of why our politics and media are so broken.  And why there are so many angry old rusted-ons who are so *annoyingly* vocal.

Said mate had three things that he wanted to discuss over a couple of bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and the best bangers and mash in town;

* How the Greek crisis is a result of lazy Greek people who think - "life was meant to be easy".

* How Government debt is just very bad and it's also bad, bad and bad.

* How our economy is stuffed - all because of incompetent government.

I was gobsmacked - He was just repeating the talking points of the right wingers, the conservatives and the dingbat media who have captured our national narrative.

This is a mature man who has;

* No understanding of the role of the German banks (and their government) in the Greek (and European) crisis.

* No understanding of the austerity game that conservatives are imposing to shield and protect *big capital* and the associated dismantling of long standing social systems.

* No understanding of the effect on consumer spending of private debt related to the housing bubble.

* No understanding of the differences between the *issuer* of a currency and the *user* of that currency.

* No inclination to question the information that he is being fed.

I suspect these are the personal *qualities* of an actual Authoritarian ;-)

He is angry and upset that things seem to be so broken - but has no idea what the root cause is or how those things got to be so broken - because his information sources are also broken.

But he has no alternative sources - because he himself is an old rusted-on - someone who has led a sheltered life in a little old sheltered town in a sheltered state in a sheltered nation.  The actual world seems to have passed these folks by.

And I think that's the issue.  The world used to be easier to understand - but it's now complex and difficult and older folks seem not to have caught up - their information sources are still the free to air television and Murdoch and Fairfax franchises that were created in the 1950's.

And those information sources are feeding them bullshit.  All to manipulate their thinking and their vote.

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