Tory Culture Wars
I have developed a habit of reading as I walk,
And today on my way to walking football,
I read the report on the Tory Party Conference opening;
Now I am not one to get angry as a rule,
I’m usually quite cold under the collar,
But what I read affected my play today:
I knew that I needed to re-read the piece,
And gather my thoughts in studied contemplation,
Rather than gather a pass and beat the goalkeeper.
‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.’
Did Josef Goebbels really say this?
Even if he didn’t, it’s a handy definition of propaganda.
Gaslighting:
When the powerful twist a victim’s sense of reality;
You feel dazed and confused;
In short, you are manipulated.
So, when senior and sundry other Tories
Invoke chimeras such as ‘woke aggression’,
And that other favourite, ‘cancel culture’,
Do they really believe what they say?
When Oliver Dowden constructs his artifice:
Cancel culture: the ‘bullying and haranguing of individuals’ and …
‘Anyone … who objects to this woke aggression –
is branded as instigating culture wars’ and …
‘That is why we must be robust … to stand up to this bullying’ and …
‘We must empower institutions to stand up to bullying …
and keep our national heroes in place’
And Nadine Dorries says the BBC will need reminding
‘What is expected of it if it wants to keep its licence fee’,
And when Liz Truss says,
‘We reject the illiberalism of cancel culture,
and we reject the soft bigotry of low expectations
that holds so many people back’,
You know that they are denying structural racism,
And when Dowden blows his red wall whistle,
‘…to keep our national heroes like Nelson, Gladstone and Churchill
in the places of honour they deserve’,
You know what he is up to.
But when he also complains about British citizens
Who perceive a current nation state,
As ‘dominated by privilege and oppression’,
He gives the game away, I think.
Gaslighting:
When the powerful twist a victim’s sense of reality;
You feel dazed and confused;
In short you are being manipulated
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