cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
I started watching network nightly news again after throwing it away for years and years, because I want to see what the average American who isn’t stuck online sees every night while cooking dinner for 3 screaming kids and having to juggle two jobs. NBC, ABC, even CBS.
It’s so bad. It’s dishearteningly bleak when you realize how much of the population catches blurbs and snippets of actual issues sandwiched between stories about weather and a local boy-scout who grew the biggest pumpkin, and of course the required nightly “true crime” story about a spouse who murdered their partner and had an affair.
I have nobody to scream at, nobody to shake. They didn’t even MENTION the strikes (protests) so far on any network, they have not shown the scale of the marches and the chaos on the streets of American cities. To say nothing of the neutral, blameless tone they use.
They only just barely started taking the people’s protests against ICE like an actual news story after Alex Pretti was murdered, because at a certain point, even the hand of the state can no longer dismiss or avoid actual reality.
This is because there are three forces of political capital in the country broadly. The strongest is the liberal masses, the majority. Farmed cattle used for the labor and attention spans and purchasing power. Middle-class America holds ALL the power because they have the most money and keep the system moving… as a result, they are manipulated and sedated the hardest.
The second force is nationalism. About 20% - 30% or so of the population are illiterate, rural or wannabe-rural grown toddlers screaming and waving guns and hating everything that moves, while worshipping the flag and kissing the king’s ass. Armed groups of nationalists have been the driving force of political capital for thousands of years, it’s no different now.
The last group is progressivism. Arguably the weakest, almost not worth mentioning it has so little power now, but is still technically on the list because we’re still here, still trying.
But it’s all shifting, as leftists start taking up arms and marching in larger and larger numbers, the networks and marketing companies have no choice but to notice it. This is because the liberal middle class is now noticing it, and when THEY shift, everything shifts.
To this end, I support continued protests and marches, even if they’re utterly pathetic by historical standards for moving systems.