Politics is Upside Down…

There’s a thing about advertising that I think you should know. It works in opposite way that you may believe. It is upside down. The ads that you see are not designed to get you up and out to the shop to buy something. It works because when you are out or online, the products that you see remind you of the advertising. That connection encourages you to select one product over another, a familiarity, a bond of knowledge. It’s why people think advertising doesn’t work on them.

That was the thought when I was considering what is going on in the world of politics, both locally but also internationally. The three books above are all invaluable if you want to get into the workings of the world, but the thing that I have taken from all three is that the political system we call democracy is now upside down.

Politicians should stand for election on the basis of improving our lives. That’s why we hear about health, education, crime and the economy. They stand on their pulpits and tell us what they are going to do for us, yet in most cases it is not that which concerns them, it is what they can get us to do for them.

All three books are looking at America, mainly because there are not many written about the UK with a similar intellectual robustness, that I have encountered anyway. The crux of the content is to tell us how American politics has been distorted by a deliberate and well planned strategy to push hard right thinking.

Funded by billionaires such as the Kochs and the Coors, with many more in support, the fundamental core to their agenda is that while it will make not one jot of difference to them or their lives, they simply want people to do what they want, to demonstrate the ultimate power of their wealth.

They are called Libertarian. That means that if you are as rich as Crassus, you get to do whatever you like, and you get to keep all your money. Income tax, corporate taxes, any taxes at all that they have to pay are to be discarded. Paying these taxes will make not one iota of difference to them, they are so rich. But they just don’t want to. They don’t want any levelling up, any racial equality, anything that would dilute their power. The sneer at women’s rights and as for gay and LGBT!

And who do they get to support them? Ordinary people, just like us. They get the poor to support laws that will make them richer and not improve anything for those that are in need. These people are smart. The have distorted every part of US life, including education and the academic world. (Inside Job, the documentary about the ’08 crash on Netflix sends with astonishing interviews with academics who had all written reports for banks that were fabricated to support their positions. They are not even embarrassed.)

They have funded politicians, political parties, false reports into climate change and gun control. They have changed laws and corrupted lawyers and judges to avoid penalties for corporate crimes.

They do not care for one instant about the wellbeing of anyone other than themselves. They go to church and carry out the moral absurdity of removing Roe vs Wade. They support politicians that are anti-abortion but also anti-welfare and pro guns, so where human life sits is a mystery. They use sport, advertising, television programmes radio shows and more to get their message across. They are Fox News. They got Murdoch fast tracked as a US citizen then changed laws to enable the building of Fox.

What does that all mean for us, in Northern Ireland.

The main everyday life issues are at crisis level for may people, right now, today. But the DUP and TUV have manipulated their electorate to do what they want, not for them to do what is needed.

Politicians are able to eat, to pay their fuel bills, to travel, to put clothes on their children’s backs. They have expenses to cover their costs of living. The DUP/TUV are prioritising their personal ideas over the needs of their constituents. Jim Allister thinks it is more important that people agree with him, than eat.

They have put the Protocol and identity at the forefront of their campaigns. They have shouted long and hard in the media and the newspapers, just like in the US, that they have the interests of people at heart, yet they are prepared to let them literally starve. They think that the voters should serve their interests, which are power and control, and not that they should be doing whatever it takes to get help for those that are in real difficulties.

We are all affected by the upside down world. If a major politician walks into the room and talks to us, we feel grateful, when in reality, they should be happy we gave them our time. After all they are paid to talk to, and work for, us.

No one, taking a helicopter view of the current climate, would suggest to a voter that putting the Protocol on the table would be preferential to food, but that is what the DUP/TUV have done. The threats to identity are not real. Even if they were real they are not real. They are conceptual. Emotional. And they have been used for over 100 years to keep the Unionist hierarchy in place.

The same could be asked of Sinn Fein if they had said that it was a United Ireland or nothing. Or Alliance with integrated education. But the other parties have all prioritised the cost of living.

Just like in the US, although our are not billionaires, we have a right wing political grouping that does not care about the voter, other than getting them to put the x where they want.

We need to turn our politics back the right way up. Now, before it is too late.