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?

Aaaaaaand... a thread about how wrong it is to stereotype and generalise has turned into a bunch of stereotypes and generalisations.

The left in this country hate the working class.

It wasn't the left destroying industry in the north during the 1980's was it? Remember also Orgreave, Hillsborough to see what the establishment thought of the working class.

PigeonStreet the Brexit-voting British working class hates me, as I wouldn't exist without EU immigration. Tell me again why I'm supposed to care about people who'd rather I didn't exist?

Why are you so offended OP? Did you vote brexit? If so... shame on you! What a lazy insult. It's on the same level as 'I bet you support Trump'.
Yes it's the Owen Jones syndrome.

Ah ok, so when high court judges are deemed "enemies of the people" we shoudn't fuss because the Guardian is running an article on the 10 best ways to cook Quinoa

No because they run articles like the poor misgendered trans woman sent to a men’s prison and isn’t it so unfair and wrong... conveniently omitting that he was in prison for sexual crimes against girls so of course shouldn’t be considered a transfer to a women’s prison.

Left wing papers have their own bias and agenda as much as right wing but they are seen as right on and so it’s all good...

I suspect these thinly veiled lefty bashing threads are started to deflect from the right wing induced brexit fuck up, the declining high street, windrush scandal, Grenfell, cabinet resignations and the general nasty bigoted fallout from the referendum.

Left wing papers have their own bias and agenda as much as right wing but they are seen as right on and so it’s all good...

They tend to avoid peddling hate and division. Could you find me a left wing paper (there are so many in the UK aren't there?) that attacked the rule of law, calls half the country remoaners, derides the young as snow flakes, objectifies women, attacks minority groups on a daily basis?

You usually see where people's real ideals are when, instead of asking them to campaign for the very richest to share, you instead ask them to give some of theirs to those with less.

You assume that everyone who campaigns for things has the means in which to help fund them. I believe in alot of charitable causes but assomeone on an ordinary income I cannot financially contribute to them all. Tax avoiders on the other hand...

It feels like different identities competing for political priority.

I am not political and have no problem with someone who is trangender. Nor do I have a problem with a woman who is Muslim. As long as people allow me my space, I dont begrudge them theirs. And anyway we are all multifaceted.

Where I have a problem is when debate over competing interests is shut down. So should Swim England allow transgenders to self declare as women if that means Muslim women (or overweight middle aged women like me) no longer feel able to access women only swim sessions. I dont know the answer but feel strongly that thete should be a debate. And even if I am not saying anything I want to be able to have a voice.

Ditto with Brexit. We were given a vote. People voted (actually I did not - the fence sermed like a comfortable place) yet their votes are being dismissed on the grounds that they must be racist. I will be very angry if a small number of people who believe they somehow know better somehow overturn a democratic decision. Because the democracy itself is important.

I dont care whether right wing or left wing or Martian, I want my voice and I want to hearother voices.

Yet my Fb feed is littered with people who seem to believe they have truth and the right to insult or demean those who dont share their views. Dangerous.

Sorry about the many typos.

You usually see where people's real ideals are when, instead of asking them to campaign for the very richest to share, you instead ask them to give some of theirs to those with less.

Agree with this, it was laughably evident on MN during the last GE, a lot of posters loudly proclaiming that they would happily pay more tax to help until Labour earmarked 70K, lots of mental gymnastics ensued that day

Agree with this, it was laughably evident on MN during the last GE, a lot of posters loudly proclaiming that they would happily pay more tax to help until Labour earmarked 70K, lots of mental gymnastics ensued that day

Given that only circa 5% of taxpayers earn 70k+ I doubt there were "lots of mental gymnastics" going on at all

YANBU. The left in this country hate the working class. I think this is because rather oddly the British working class tend to be quite right politically, generally patriotic, believes in bettering yourself and for smaller government. Everything the left hates.

Very well said! You can add in their instinctual dislike of politically-correct bullshit too.

Given that only circa 5% of taxpayers earn 70k+ I doubt there were "lots of mental gymnastics" going on at all

Well it depends on how "lots" is defined if you want to get semantic, but there were multiple threads and some prominent posters who up until that point was proud of their working class upbringing and would happily pay more tax right.

"I'm all right Jack" syndrome is not solely a trait of the right wing, it overlaps massively with the Champagne Socialists in their Ivory Towers who use just the same tax avoidance schemes, unpaid internships and inheritance loopholes that all those nasty daily mail reading types do.

The left in this country hate the working class

“The left” isn’t one homogenous mass.

I class myself as left wing. I don’t hate the working class. I dislike bigots from any class, unfortunately my nearest northern industrial city those that shout loudest are the ones with the least pleasant opinions. Some are working class. Some aren’t.

Could you find me a left wing paper (there are so many in the UK aren't there?) that attacked the rule of law, calls half the country remoaners, derides the young as snow flakes, objectifies women, attacks minority groups on a daily basis?

No...they just insult all Brexit voters and idiots and racists, deride the elderly as selfish and ignorant, accuse anyone of not agreeing with certain movements as being something-phobic etc etc...

Obviously each side has their own faults and agendas, and it's silly to claim otherwise/pretend left wing newspapers are immune to this.

*Brexit voters as idiots and racists

Well it depends on how "lots" is defined if you want to get semantic, but there were multiple threads and some prominent posters who up until that point was proud of their working class upbringing and would happily pay more tax right.

5% isn't lots though is it? I doubt all 5% post of MN. So its not semantics - likely to be 1 or 2 posters you are referring to. Which is not quite as impressive an argument is it?

No...they just insult all Brexit voters and idiots and racists, deride the elderly as selfish and ignorant, accuse anyone of not agreeing with certain movements as being something-phobic etc etc...

Well I'm not sure what articles inparticular you are referring to but it is clear some people are very "touchy" about observations being made e.g.

Some brexit voters may have been poorly informed = you are calling us stupid
Baby boomers had better employment opportunites, lower housing costs = ageism

I also hate the way the guardian squad
Wax lyrical and lecture about the virtues of state education wile make sure that their children are tutored and packed off to the nearest grammer or private school

James o Brian anyone

He lives in the whitest part of Hammersmith and fullham
We’re you wouldn’t get much change from 1 million his daughters attend a private school
He himself went to private and his media career was ensured by his fathers

But of course someone like this knows much more about the working class even though I am working class

People like him know much more about immigrants and race considering I am black and my parents were immigrants

And he knows much more about state education as his children attend a private

😬😬😬😬🤔

And what give him more qualifications he has a degree of course and people like me our views mean nothing lest we be awoke by the educated middle classes to our ignorance

He embodies the smugness and sneering that I always known the middle classes think about people like me

GhostofFrankGrimes
Or

I voted remain=I am well educated and woke 🙄

Young people expect far to much and don’t think they should cut their cloth according=ageism

James O'Brien isn't the figurehead of the middle classes though is he?

A school teacher on 22k living in a rented apartment would also be seen as middle class.

Pigeon holing people isn't helpful but well done on playing divide and conquer.

I voted remain=I am well educated and woke

Well, statistically yes. Bloody facts.

Young people expect far to much and don’t think they should cut their cloth according=ageism

or young folk should cut their iphone contracts, stop taking 3 foreign holidays a year and be grateful for their zero hour contract job = I've swallowed a tabloid newspaper.