I'd say you had them scared, but they're always fucking scared
I'm wondering what percentage of the ridiculous, hyperbolic fear-mongering over the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader would be going on over the election of literally anyone else as Labour leader.
I'm thinking at least 80%.
Hate and fear. Fear and hate.
Someone is coming! Someone is coming to take away what is yours; to raise your taxes, to steal your laptop, to lower your house prices, to seduce your offspring, to explode in your city centres. The other, the outsider, the thief, the reaver, the betrayer. Hate them, fear them, destroy them!
Hate and fear, fear and hate. All the time. Lie hard enough and fast enough, and by the time an election rolls around people will dislike your target even if they can no longer remember why.
And whilst the right-wing press were claiming that Corbyn was the direct cause of airborne gypsy Ebola AIDS, left-leaning types were busy complaining that he hadn't picked enough women to be in his Shadow Cabinet - this is before the majority of the Shadow Cabinet appointments had even been announced, mind you.
Then he maybe had picked enough women, but he hadn't given them prestigious enough jobs.
Then he hadn't picked enough people from Scotland, Wales, the North, or wherever else.
But this is a trap, a riddle with no correct answer. If he picks the person who he thinks is best for the job, he's bigoted against any possible subgroup of person who didn't get the job. If he picks someone because of their gender or social/cultural/ethnic background, he's guilty of tokenism. Pick too few women, and you're a misogynist. If you were to pick too many - assuming you had that many available to pick from - then you'd have been swayed by the evil feminazi agenda to disempower men, or you'd be an aging lothario surrounding yourself with a harem, or some other damn stupid story.
You can't win, you can't break even, and the dealer keeps changing the rules and lying about it.
Meanwhile, outside the gates, elderly reactionary billionaires buy words by the million to prophesy the coming apocalypse.
Because scared people vote, and you only need to scare 20% of the electorate to scrape a majority and carry on selling stuff you never owned to your friends for a pittance.
I have no massively strong feelings about Corbyn yet, but I'm sick to the back fucking teeth of two parties swearing blindly that there's no alternative to austerity, to relentless privatisation, in the face of all the evidence.
I'm thinking at least 80%.
Hate and fear. Fear and hate.
Someone is coming! Someone is coming to take away what is yours; to raise your taxes, to steal your laptop, to lower your house prices, to seduce your offspring, to explode in your city centres. The other, the outsider, the thief, the reaver, the betrayer. Hate them, fear them, destroy them!
Hate and fear, fear and hate. All the time. Lie hard enough and fast enough, and by the time an election rolls around people will dislike your target even if they can no longer remember why.
And whilst the right-wing press were claiming that Corbyn was the direct cause of airborne gypsy Ebola AIDS, left-leaning types were busy complaining that he hadn't picked enough women to be in his Shadow Cabinet - this is before the majority of the Shadow Cabinet appointments had even been announced, mind you.
Then he maybe had picked enough women, but he hadn't given them prestigious enough jobs.
Then he hadn't picked enough people from Scotland, Wales, the North, or wherever else.
But this is a trap, a riddle with no correct answer. If he picks the person who he thinks is best for the job, he's bigoted against any possible subgroup of person who didn't get the job. If he picks someone because of their gender or social/cultural/ethnic background, he's guilty of tokenism. Pick too few women, and you're a misogynist. If you were to pick too many - assuming you had that many available to pick from - then you'd have been swayed by the evil feminazi agenda to disempower men, or you'd be an aging lothario surrounding yourself with a harem, or some other damn stupid story.
You can't win, you can't break even, and the dealer keeps changing the rules and lying about it.
Meanwhile, outside the gates, elderly reactionary billionaires buy words by the million to prophesy the coming apocalypse.
Because scared people vote, and you only need to scare 20% of the electorate to scrape a majority and carry on selling stuff you never owned to your friends for a pittance.
I have no massively strong feelings about Corbyn yet, but I'm sick to the back fucking teeth of two parties swearing blindly that there's no alternative to austerity, to relentless privatisation, in the face of all the evidence.