- cross-posted to:
- thebadwebsite@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- thebadwebsite@lemmy.world
[two characters are talking]
Vaccines have saved millions of lives you know
[a blue character points at them proudly]
Heh, look at those idiots over there, they believe in the most obvious propaganda
[the blue character is shown doing various faces]
Anyway, did you know communism killed 100 million people?
I’ve seen that 20% of the people commit 80% of the crime
Our military keeps the world a safer place
Everyone starts with opportunities, you have to earn your place in society, work harder
[sixteen variations of the blue character are shown on a multicolored grid]
Crime is out of control and keeps getting worse
Men are natural leaders, women’s nature is to nurture
Billionaires create jobs
Poor people just keep making bad decisions in life
Migrants are taking our jobs
Socialism is when we all share the same paycheck
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear
If minimum wages go up, everyone will get fired, it’s math
We brought modernity to the countries we colonized
The wage gap is a myth you’re just looking at it wrong
Immigration mathematically causes crime
Developing countries are poor because of corruption
We are the good guys
If workers were worth more, they would be paid more
Universal healthcare is communism
Patriotism means supporting the troops
[a large drawing of a serious Garfield is surrounded by the infinitely repeating phrase]
YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA
Imma give you some flack for copy-pasting the same face 16x in the bottom, I imagine that part looking really neat with just slightly different faces.
Also the ones about immigration really bother me. Like, I couldn’t tell you how anyone would have a direct financial interest in fewer immigrants coming into a country. So why would anyone propagandise that? I think just because xenophobia is effective for getting a party into power that can help your actual interest. I’m positive that the all rich people supporting anti-immigration campaigns don’t care about immigration at all and are willing to trample over those people just to get some purchasable asshole into power.
Polish here. I can answer that using my country as an example. I will be using “I” statement in the scenarios.
Scenario A: I am a low wage worker. I see poor migrants coming in and being hired for less for Uber, Uber Eats, McDonalds and similar “entry jobs”. I see corporations enshittifying the pay and work conditions. I blame the workforce surplus, as it allowed that enshittification (literally the high number of drivers in UberEats compared to orders is what allowed Uber to fuck it up in Poland). I blame the migrants - if they didn’t come, there would be no surplus of the workforce, thus no enshittification. I could’ve also blamed corporations or government that allows such abomination as gig work, but the direct link is migration.
Scenario B: I am a middle wage worker. I live in a big city. There is limited number of apartments to buy or rent, of good quality (public transportation, distance to work, parks, other amenities). New constructions take place on edges of the city, thus it increases the commute time significantly, there’s no good restaurants there yet etc etc etc. I see influx of migrants to the city, this leads to rent increase and apt price increase because more people want to buy rent than without migrants. I could’ve blamed the landlors or the government for allowing the speculations or “investment buying” and keeping them empty (e. g. I live in Warsaw Poland, according to national office of statistics 20% of apartments in the city are kept empty by private owners, including pension funds from Scandinavia, to not “deflate” the prices) and untaxed.
Btw: both scenarios are visible to the population only when there’s a sudden spike in migration of (poor) workers or refugees, keyword “spike” - which is what happened in Poland.
First our anti-immigration USA-loving right wing government PIS allowed entry of 6.1 M (in a country of 38M) of foreigners (which is about 10 times more than the previous pro-immigration government, I shit you not), mostly to fill in low wage positions (Scenario A) and to let USA corporations spreading through the country like a cancer establish “gig work”.
Then during invasion of Ukraine we got another spike in migrants, but this time a lot of middle-wage ones (and prices of apartments in big cities skyrocketed, again 20% are artificially empty) - Scenario B.
So as someone else mentioned in the thread:
Yup. Literally this.
That is fair enough. I should have been more specific because what I meant to say is that I don’t see how anyone with the financial means to create a propaganda campaign would be interested in fewer immigrants.
But then again, that is kinda the job of a party. A party composed of and voted for by the people you mention would be exactly that.
Okay so sit down…
Xenophobia is a tool to divide the working class and buy complacency of certain groups in exchange for being told they are special or more worthy than others.
It is also used to create scapegoats for the harms caused by the capitalists.
Once you understand that you can see why people having solidarity with marginalized groups they don’t belong to isn’t virtue signaling, it’s the only path forward.
Okay so stand up
Yeah that’s what I was trying to say, the propagandists use xenophobia as a pretext to get power in order to get policies through that have nothing to do with immigration. Xenophobia is a means to an end for them and they don’t mind ruining some people’s lives if that allows them to get power for other goals.
It bothers me so much because this is not hateful people being assholes because they’re hateful. This is privileged, powerful people being assholes because it happens to be convenient to them.
I feel you