Why Have Americans Stopped Resisting Economic Privilege?

[Prophet 451]

17. Yes, but take it further

Look at the lifestyles presented as normal on tv. You ever watch Friends? Watching that show, you would think a cook/chef and someone drifting from one dead-end job to the next (Monica & Rachel) could afford a loft apartment in New York. Or a paleontologist (I know some academics, they make crap money) could afford a spacious apartment. Or that an office drone and a jobbing actor could. The lifestyles presented as "average" on tv, in sitcoms and dramas and so on, aren't average. They're upper-middle-class at least. The only time you see poor people and their lifestyles is when they're brought on Jeremy Kyle (think a moralistic, judgmental, constantly shouting Jerry Springer) or something similar to be laughed at.

And yes, being poor and the people who are poor have been demonized. They've been presented as not wanting to work, as being too drunk or drugged to work (people think they're poor because they drink when in reality, they drink because they're poor). They're presented as lazy, irresponsible and sometimes dangerous. People are trained to despise them, to view them as a dangerous and hostile "other". The genpop have been trained to believe that welfare fraud is rampant, that anyone can get a job if they try, that the minimum wage is only paid to teenagers making pocket money and that there is no such thing as a disability that makes you unable to work. The actual facts are that welfare fraud is so rare that it costs more to root out than to ignore it, that there are three unemployed for every job opening, that it is increasingly everyone on the minimum wage (which was intended to be a living wage) and some disabilities make you incapable of work.

I'm British. Here, teh tabloids have been running an outright hate campaign against anyone receiving welfare benefits. Real, Orwell-style "two minutes of hate" stuff. There have been assaults and suicides because of it. I'm disabled, both because I'm physically crippled and because I'm severely mentally ill (MDD, GAD, "visions" and voices). Our system for disability support, ESA, assumes from the outset that your own doctor is a liar. You have to be interviewed by a doctor paid and incentivized to find you fit for work, no matter what your circumstances. The only reason they passed me as unfit for work last time was that my SO and doctor wrote letters saying that my suicide was virtually certain if they didn't. And I know how much the genpop despise me because the tabloids tell them to. There's a very good book called "Chavs" that describes the demonization of the working class here and, although some details are different, I can see it happening in your country as well.

The PtB want you starving and desperate, too broken and too desperate to protest for fair wages or fair treatment. They want you to labour sixteen hours a day for a dosshouse bed for teh night and a meal. And they're just plain brought one party entirely, a fair bit of the other, all the regulatory agencies and a majority of the SCOTUS. And nothing will change for the foreseeable future.