Wednesday 25 May 2011

It's the people stupid!

Nothing to learnum here!
As cringe worthy and damn site anger stimulating things like Daily Mail headlines and Sarah Palin utterings can be to many they are certainly very effective in communicating with their audience. The recent, UK Conservative government led anti Alternative Vote campaign could, too, be viewed as having been plucked from the same reference book.

Readers of the broadsheet press will have gazed upon harsh and to some extent dismissive criticism of all of the above for being simplistic, populist and vulgar and yet their effectiveness is undiminished. Take Sarah Palin's book for example and combine it with her political short(video) that came out during the Mid term US elections. Both seen as tabloid, cliche and lacking in any cranial content. That is to quote some of the politest of critics. One could argue, however, that they are a stroke of genius. Ms Palin, the Daily Mail and Messrs Cameron et al. are fully aware to whom they are speaking and have tailored their messages perfectly. Sometimes the truth is a victim, but the audience is happy and the agendas are met. We dare not educate them else they might know what they are voting for(or against as is more likely)!

In much the same way that the Thatcherite philosophy of the 1980s relied on a large pool of unemployed to succeed this neo libertarian, staunch conservatism (an oxymoron if there ever was') relies on a pseudo educated masses to steamroller its' engine through.

It has been interesting to hear comments from my peers here in Britain while observing the news on the Arab spring. As young Egyptinas and Tunisians face cameras and articulate in good english about political freedoms and what not and to find out that some of them are shop keepers, taxi drivers and manual workers yet command a level of education we wouldn't expect on UK shop floors. That's unless they were Polish of course!
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