To not find middle class ‘socialists’ laughing at the poor and uneducated very funny.

[Mightymucks]

I’m currently a mature student and am on a lot of FB pages related to my Uni. I need to be on there for news, but an awful lot of the content seems to be middle class self proclaimed socialists laughing at jokes poking fun at the thick unwashed masses who might have the temerity not to slavishly agree with them on every issue.

Take this morning. One of them posted a joke about an imaginary rabid Brexiteer called ‘Sharon from Croydon’ who voted for Brexit ‘because she thinks brown neurosurgeons are stealing jobs she would have been qualified for if she hadn’t dropped out of her hair and beauty NVQ’. Cue much hilarity from these students and lots of comments about ‘thick northerners’ whose capability of engaging with the political process doesn’t extend beyond looking at one slogan on a bus.

I called him ‘a snob’ and he responded that he was ‘calling out racism’ despite the fact that ‘Sharon’ is fictional and therefore doesn’t need calling out. It was just a series of lazy stereotypes designed to stoke predjudice and exactly the thing socialism is supposed to be explicitly against?

A symptom of this in a ward by the Uni near me Labour has actually removed a local candidate with long standing Labour links and huge respect from locals because he is
‘too working class’ for the students to vote for and replaced him with a history academic from out of town.

I should point out that in my working class northern area I don’t know a single person who isn’t aware that Marxism and socialism represents the working classes and the poor and uneducated. But apparently a University education doesn’t extend to teaching that these days.

I also know it isn’t universal in Labour because I had a fantastic female middle aged canvasser around this weekend who was totally clued up on issues of local concern like school funding and libraries and actually convinced me to vote for them.

But AIBU to hate these middle class millennial fuckwits who pretend they’re socialists but are actually massive fucking crashing snobs?

Of course apart from the party faithful who can afford to now buy houses and cars that are not from a rat pack film

There’s also an interesting book called ‘A Mountain Full of Crumbs’ about growing up in the USSR. The authors parents were quite high powered in the party so she talks about having treats and their own apartments and a dacha and choices of where to go to work or school.

But the hoipolloi were 3 families per apartment and sent to work in Siberia and to rotten jobs and terrible schools.

Anna Funder’s Stasiland about East Germany is a good read too. There are lots of parallels with today especially with ordinary people policing others opinions and politics and being ‘informed on’ having negative effects on employment and prospects.

I was reminded of that with that Twitter storm today about the ‘tell someone if you see something beautiful in someone’ quote on the tube being complained about. People like that would love to hear they’d got someone sacked or warned. The ‘terf’ lists and doxing are also similar too.

Mightymucks Totally your view doesn’t just get challenged if you don’t tow the line you will end ask being sacked it’s shocking I stopped watching most panel shows Barr Peirs Morgan because you see everyone trying to be neutral as possible not trying to offering the end you get know ones true views or any facts

Just alternate facts so people aren’t sad or don’t hound them out of their job vow Twitter

Socialism makes everyone equally poor.

It enforces equality by limiting freedom.

I am not using the word ‘freedom’ in the secret police sense, I am using it to describe the ability of individuals to better themselves.

Dave and John each get 10 shekels.

Dave spends his on cigarettes and alcohol.

John would like to start a business or invest his 10 shekels instead, but the state enforces equality of outcome so will take a dim view of his ambition and will respond by confiscating any surplus.

The net result? There is no incentive to strive or better oneself because the state will simply put you back to where it considers the equality line is.

Amen I was shocked to hear many professors ar was owning as fab drivers in Cuba. Because it’s one of few jobs the state don’t own and you can make more money

Wtf

YANBU

Middle class socialists, not just students, do hate the working class. But MCS 'hate speech' is like dutch courage because really deep down they fear the WC. It's because the MCS are cowards. For example see the way they abandoned 1000s of WC girls in Rotherham and Rochdale etc.

With issues like Brexit and immigration, the WC know they are called names, 'thicko' etc by the MCS but don't care. It's like water off a ducks back. WC people (of all ethnic backgrounds) are concerned about govt policy on immigration but that is is not the same as blaming immigrants. WC people know that, but it's something the MCS cannot grasp.

There is a wonderful video of a MCS remainer on YouTube shouting another woman who is holding a leve sign. The leaver just remains calm, while the remainer woman shouts at her as if she is a naughty servant. She even says "you people' at one point.

@GhostofFrankGrimes

or stuck on zero hour contracts would agree.

Are we talking about people working at the Guardian on zero hour contracts, or talking about the stats that show the majority of people on zero hour contracts are actually happy on them, it seems as though you have only read headlines and just beating an empty drum.

You are still yet to mention how you can be pro EU and pro Corbyn

frankgrimes, the headline to that research said they were ‘happy’ with their jobs but the question they actually answered was simply ‘are you happy with the number of hours you work’. Which ignores the issue of lack of security and rights. Plus it was done by the CIPD who are not really neutral.

Ooh sorry, that was lurker

@Mightymucks

The research was a little more than "are you happy", it asked if they wanted more hours, if they wanted another job etc, all indicate that percentage wise it was actually lower than those in full time salaried employment, the numbers on ZHC are very small and does include working for the likes of the Guardian (the same as they use unpaid internships when they made a big thing about that)

Mcdonalds recently offered fixed term hours to all its staff, the uptake of that was around 10% iirc, shitty employers are shitty employers without ZHC, but to keep bringing it up as a kind of Gotcha, is banging an empty political drum

Ghost of

Still waiting to hear how your pro eu stance fits with corbyns manifesto pledge to leave the eu...

Is he the ‘absolute boy’ or not? The people deserve to know!!!

Still waiting to hear how your pro eu stance fits with corbyns manifesto pledge to leave the eu.

Please do not summon me to answer questions. Particularly questions that I have already answered.

It is possible, you know, to have more than one moral commitment. This sometimes means that different moral principles can come into conflict. For example, you can be pro-EU AND pro-direct democracy. Which would mean that you personally retained the right to think that Remaining was the right thing to do, but that you also recognised the mandate of a democratic majority to Leave.

Ah I see - so when Jeremy is pro leave that’s a responsible recognition of a democratic decision to leave.

But When a conservative holds the same position they are right wing lunatics hell bent on economic Armageddon....

I think I get it.

Ghost of - no, you didn’t answer the question actually. I guess that’s because - like anti semitism and all the other labour ‘issues’ - rose tinted glasses prevent you. I think they call that cognitive dissonance...

No, I obviously don't speak for him, but I suspect Jeremy Corbyn's position is much more like the kind of 'Lexit' view held by the New Left Review, Wolfgang Streek etc. etc. etc. Those who read widely in the run-up to the referendum will be familiar with the coordinates of that positioning. I also suspect that, as something of a fan of a more direct and responsive democracy, he sees the vote as more binding than some other Labour MPs.

This is a good illustration of the complexities of Brexit, and the way that voting patterns on it don't map fully onto a left/right agenda. To state the screamingly obvious, there is quite a lot of polling evidence that Leave managed to gain a fair bit of support from traditional Labour voters in the northern heartlands.

Your attempt to put words into my mouth with the criticism of 'right wing lunatics bent on economic Armageddon' fails because I'm one of those people who really agonised over which way to vote because I agreed with some of the major points made by those arguing for Lexit, but felt repelled by some of the xenophobia and sometimes direct racism on the Leave side.

Sorry, but I’m originally a midlands girl from a mining town and can assure you that the ‘undereducated poor’ there would have no such sensitivities about laughing and taking the piss out of people who have actually pulled themselves up, got out and got on. The country finds itself in its current situation in my opinion because celebrating stupidness has actually become ok

There is no such thing as lexit

We either leave the eu or we don’t

Anything else is a fudge

Ah I see - so when Jeremy is pro leave that’s a responsible recognition of a democratic decision to leave.

Nope, I've never said that.

But When a conservative holds the same position they are right wing lunatics hell bent on economic Armageddon....

To be fair when the hard brexiteers are prepared to "just leave!" or walk away then economic armageddon seems like a good description.

I think I get it.

No you really don't thats the problem.

Ghost of - no, you didn’t answer the question actually. I guess that’s because - like anti semitism and all the other labour ‘issues’ - rose tinted glasses prevent you. I think they call that cognitive dissonance...

Nah, when you claim to stand up for the working classes at the same time as voting Tory and Brexit that is cognitive dissonance.

Anything else is a fudge

Have you not been watching the last 2 years? The inept Tories have been kicking the can down the endless road.

Lexit is simply intellectual dishonesty from the left. It is nothing more than a cynical tactic that allows the Labour Party to present itself as all things to all people.

It has literally nothing to do with the national interest and everything to do with hedging electoral bets. Labour have simply positioned themselves so that if Brexit works or fails, they can claim they were on the right side of history either way.

Jeremy Corbyn is lauded as a man of principle. Funny how his clear principles over the eu - his voting record and own words call it a bad manifestation of big business and all its ills - fall away when he feels he has a whiff of power.

Wake up kids - the antiquated Marxism of Jeremy and co is not cool. Not cool at all. If you want change you have fallen for the wrong guy. He will sell you snake oil all the way to the point this country has imploded as they ‘experiment’ with their bonkers economic model.

For the many not the few? Corbyn will still have his £££ house in Islington and Abbott will still have her children at boarding school. They are charlatans and con artists bereft of leadership or vision.

Hey Why are you obsessed with Labour? If you are so enraged by people supporting anyone other than the Tories why don't you tell us the virtues of supporting the Conservatives?

Tell us how austerity has helped the poor, show us how the Tories have regenerated working class areas over the last 8 years, show us what the Tories have done for the NHS. Convince us windrush, the claims of Islamphobia are just a big misunderstandings. Convince us we shouldn't be holding the government to account.

Tell us how renationalising the railways is akin to communism and the greatest danger this country faces. Tell us!!

Ghost of - I do so enjoy our conversations... back and forth we go, with you selectively cutting and splicing the comments of others..

This government have run out of ideas, but neither are they the bond villains concocted by the left.

Labour are the official opposition. They are supposedly the government in waiting.

That they don’t act as such is detrimental to our democracy. That you support them as such without any hint of criticism speaks volumes about your view of the world and ‘X factor approach’ to idolising corbyn

He is not s kindly grandfather. He is not the messiah.

Chav isn't interchangeable with working class person
That’s sweet you think that.
I mean, very naive, but sweet.
There’s a reason that Katie Hopkins doesn’t get called a chav...

That they don’t act as such is detrimental to our democracy.

That is your personal view not the view of every voter.

That you support them as such without any hint of criticism speaks volumes about your view of the world and ‘X factor approach’ to idolising corbyn

The fact that I do not support his stance on Brexit shows that I do not "idolise" Corbyn.

Personally I'd take any government that didn't thrive on hate and division. It makes Britain a pretty nasty place to live at present.

history tells us the division and bigotry usually comes from the right
I’m pretty sure there were a fair few wars that came from the left....
Being left wing worked out real well for the Soviet Union and currently in North Korea, eh? Such... tolerance