I've been thinking about this a bit, lately. Australia is in the middle of a massive flooding crisis (again), which has mainly affected rural areas. Yet it has been extremely noticeable that, each time this has happened in the last year or so, the media has been far more concerned (to the point of it almost being comical) with flooding in the respective capital city impacted, rather than the much heavier hit rural areas...
Population size and density plays into this. I realise that. As does proximity, with media orgs and journalists mostly being based out of the capitals. But it is so blatant, when it gets to the point where even specific "regional networks" are more concerned with the city than the country, and when regional areas are almost completely ignored, even when people actually die in the flood.
So there's that. Which is nothing if not representative of a trend that we have seen in this country for at least a decade.
But there's more than that - when the journalists do get out to these country towns (varying in size from a few thousand people to literally 100K), and interview the people there, it is immediately apparent that they see the world in a completely different way, both to the journalist asking the questions, and to most... "Elite" city folk.
They're not worried about climate change. They don't view these floods as "apocalyptic", or "the worst we have ever seen". They're just going about their business, trying to survive and get by, and actually banding together to look after each other, and the vulnerable members of their community. It's actually remarkably wholesome to see (what we see of it, which is not much).
This, in complete contrast to the city/suburban folk who got flooded out, who have... Already literally turned on each other, and started apportioning blame. Despite the fact that they are the ones the government mostly focussed on, and they got the most support, before anyone else.
This, despite the fact that people in those "rural communities" are poorer, less "educated", and generally... With worse health outcomes than people in the city.
It was the same during Covid, of course, but I've never seen it to quite this extent before. These are "the forgotten people", whose votes are generally discounted (because rural electorates, which get swamped by city voters) and who are, I have to be honest, largely ignored, by not just the media, but by... "City folk" more broadly.
Obviously you see this trend even more clearly in the US, and arguably the UK. I think this phenomenon is pretty much part of most "human societies", for at least the last 200 years or so, but it's still... Really jarring when you see it. The level of disenfranchisement be real. And we should really do better.
Arguably, this was a big part of the Trump phenomenon, and Brexit. And perhaps Meloni, and the recent Swedish election, even, too. It's just... Stunning, frankly, that the "elites" continue down this same path, even here, and don't seem to have learned a single fucking thing from those examples...
So yeah. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I've been wanting to get that one out of my system, for days, since I really started to think about it, lol...
So I guess the next question is: How long before city-dwellers seek to disenfranchise people out in the country who simply will not vote the way they are directed to by their betters?
There's any number of ways to do it, down to simply shutting polling stations in the country in the name of efficiency.
Also, my family's not so rabidly elitist as yours (my mum's side are from Wales, my grandfather was firmly working-class) but I do see an awful lot of middle-class people telling working-class people what they should think rather than simply asking them.
Bear in mind, though, the UK is considerably more class-conscious than the US, which seems to have decided to have similar fault lines along a racial basis instead.
They do and have for decades.
On the other points - completely, completely agree with all of it.
This has already happened with churches here (Anglican ones, mostly), and then banks, and then post offices. It is almost inevitable that this trend will eventually continue, as you say, to that point...
Though bear in mind that voting is compulsory here, at all levels now, so... If they did that, it would be a bit harder for them to revenue-raise by sending out all those warnings and fines to people who didn't vote, then, wouldn't it..?
Lol, I used to work for the electoral commission. In rural areas, sometimes (and also in super working class parts of the city I lived in). I can't tell you how quickly the smirk gets wiped off the face of city slickers like that when they count the ballot papers and realise it hasn't gone the way "they expected", lol... Especially in federal elections.
The US has a very fluid class system, and people tend to think they can move around more than they are likely to. But they actually can move around. There are some "old money" snobs, but most of the money isn't that old due to the youth of the nation. If you get money, you can become upper class.
Race-based division was sown by commies (inc. the Soviet Union) since they didn't see much of an opportunity to divide us into serfs and kulaks and nobility or whatever. Cultural Marxism is an appropriate term, whatever its origin, because they are looking to reframe the Marxist dialect in terms of new divisions.
The class system does show up in the US and has been getting stronger. In Seattle we didn't know or care if it was a billionaire or a homeless guy we were talking to. Then San francisco moved in and the lines got drawn and double drawn. Before the riots I could look down one side of a street and see homeless people, and the other side had a rich people's mall. The next block would have the same and then again. I hated it but didn't know what to do.
Fair. I'm in Aus, so... Slightly different situation again!
One set of my grandparents were very working class (to the point of my mother having no running water, as a small child, because they lived in a shack), which makes... The raving elitism even weirder, I suppose. "Overcompensation", you might say...
My family has been in the city where I (sort of) grew up for a very long time, though (like 100+ years, on every side, I think), and is fairly prominent (oddly, the working class ones, mainly), so perhaps that is part of it...
They're all utterly obsessed with genealogy, or, at least, the unembarassing bits of it, to the point of weaponising that against me ("you could have been a great footballer, you know!"), so...
Idk, hey?
"You always had the makings of a varsity athlete" - Bruce "Junyah" Soprano, Australian gangster from hit TV series Sopranos: Down Under
Hehehe, yeah, my lot are quite fond of the genealogy stuff, too, although weirdly, quite a bit of the controversy is on the Italian side for my lot, rather than the Welsh. That merely had people drinking inherited fortunes away, the Italian lot left Italy because they didn't get along with the local government ... the local government built a road through their land and even though it had done that it still didn't give my ancestors the right to be highwaymen, though they didn't see it that way at the time...
It had to be done.
Eh, I mean, I wouldn't be here if they hadn't, half of my gene pool would be on the wrong side of the continent, but still...
Oh in the UK its VERY noticeable, to the extent that more rural locations like Yorkshire and Lake District despise London and the bigger cities while they get looked down on.
Which is bad news for cities as shown during the lockdowns, they are completely dependent on them still producing food for them. If there was an attempt to disenfranchise would result in a cut off of services. Even the towns in these places in rural areas have the space to be semi self-sufficient but cities, they'll eat each other within a few weeks.
That's one of the main reasons why every war game scenario the U.S. military runs shows the establishment losing a revolution/civil war 2.0. The rural folks grow all the food. Cities are easily cut off. The government would be forced into policing its own supportors (city folk), to prevent mass starvation and rioting, while the rebels could move and attack where they pleased. Shipments of food from ouside the country couldn't maintain city populations, and transporting outside food would be insanely difficult for the government, given that it would have to travel through rural areas, on roads which are easily cut off and controlled by rebels, and since almost all truckers are right wing. The entire charade U.S. tyranny is built on would collapse quickly.
I think we're in an excellent political climate for a return to the Victory Garden. Suburban people should plow up their lawns and grow vegetables.
Flee the cities! Leave them to themselves and their harebrained politics; let antifa fags make their pathetic little chazz gestures, planting tomato seedlings on cardboard covered with potting soil while they loot and burn down the Safeway.
Market Gardens!
Something like 40 fucking percent of domestic produce was grown by families at the end of WWII. That they immediately stopped doing that is one of many things I've never forgive the """greatest generation""" for.
The fact so many stopped was stupid but there is still a huge drive for it
Any allotment land from in cities to even rural areas has a waiting list to it, and that waiting list is when someone physically can't do it anymore. They just ensure people are disenfranchised to do it in cities by space requirements mostly.
Agreed. Most people should grow their own food, or as much as they can. Whatever the initial intent was, cities have become nothing but a blight, upon civilization and the people that dwell within. People can't naturally take care of themselves within the confines of a city. Even though people in cities are the most reliant upon others for their survival, they're almost universally the most irritable, uncaring, individualistic, despicable people I've ever met. I cast my lot in with those in the country.
How is rural England doing in the face of the Islamifying of London and other major cities?
I like to think the traditions and literature have gone underground in places with hedgerows . . . or am I being too romantic?
It depends as it seems like some areas already got integration from Indian communities who actually assimilated, and they naturally hate Islam so it's been a barrier.
That and cold, the further north you go, the less of Islamic you get, when I was in Edinburgh a few years ago, there wasn't that much of a Islamic presence, some Asian and Indian restaurants but not a lot of Islamic.
Yeah, when I was in Scotland (2014), saw plenty of Indian stuff, but hardly any Muzzies…
Which, amusingly, made the Canadian Muzzies who I had to work with (long story) rather… Out of place, lololol…
Scotland “just wasn’t as multicultural” as what those Ontario weirdos were used to, I gather…
As someone who lives in rural England, you would be forgiven for thinking the invasion isn't happening. It's a small country, but it's not THAT small. I have noticed a slow but steady trickle of detritus from London into my nearest city, but the town I live in is still 99.9% native. How long that lasts is another question.
As long as there are land-use restrictions, I mean, muzzies aren't about to take up farming.
That'd be terrible. A high-cholesterol diet like that could takes years off your lifespan...
In the Northwest, we have a fire season. The reason why one side of Oregon and Washington are green makes a large area a desert. July through September has constant fires and smoke everywhere. It's not uncommon to not be able to see a block away from you in certain parts.
These fires are never mentioned in the news. If a fire breaks out in California, it's international news. If I mention the fires in the northwest, I am usually told it's my fault because of global warming.
That’s how it feels when it floods or we have fires (and sometimes people die) in Tasmania. Or when the Riverina (much like what you describe - the “dry” part of NSW/Victoria/QLD) floods.
They simply do not care. Despite said region producing the majority of food for those states…
And yes, exactly like you say, sometimes they even try to blame farming communities, for their carbon emissions (lol), or for “voting for the wrong party”…
Sydney (or, even more to their horror - Melbourne!) floods..?
International news. Panic stations. Throw all the resources at it.
It’s exactly the same as you describe (except that Australia is even more urbanized and centralized, so people care even less). Word.
Funny that…
I guess it's worth saying: I grew up around elitist snobs. I did my best to rebel against this (and continue to try to be better, in that regard), but my family were, and are...
So snobby that they judged me for dating "outside my class", actively barred me from being friends with "lower class" people (to whatever extent they could, anyway), and are literally the kind of people who wouldn't even visit certain suburbs or towns because they thought the people there were "beneath" them (even my aunts, uncles and grandparents do similar shit)...
It took me until nearly 20 to realise quite how fucked up that was. But anyway.
So yeah, I guess I'm one of those "elites" (though that feels a bit... Hollow, as a broke, unemployed, undereducated person), or, at least, I grew up as one.
But at least I'm self aware. I've never been as "elitist" as the people around me - my family in particular. I don't consider myself a snob, anymore.
But I've seen that snobbery. I know how it works. I've heard all the despicable insults you could think of, applied to "poor white people". And... Frankly it makes me rather sad that the media and judicial class, and indeed our political class (here) is almost solely comprised of people like that. That's... Definitely not healthy, for a society. Whatever your political views may be.
Honestly... I'd likely stand aside, lol.
They never stood up for me - I don't really feel the need to do the same for them, heh.
Though I would probably save my remaining grandparents. They're alright. And I note that had I made my own chosen family, let's say, by now, obviously... I would put them first. But I don't feel that I owe that to my, uhh, "gene donors"...
Harsh, but fair at this point, I think.
Which is why I sincerely hope that I would have my own little "clan" by then, even if it's just me + one, lol.
Though the way things are going, the mob may well arrive before that hypothetical "she" does, heh.
Good one!
My impression is that NYC is like, the epitome of that quote. So much so that apparently city administrators are planning for a “childless future city” (no bullshit)…
The closest Australia has is probably Melbourne, which, unsurprisingly, is the main place I was talking about here.
The other good examples are Paris and Prague. I’ve never seen places that contrast so fervently to the rest of their respective countries, and where the instruments of power are so… Insanely centralized, as those two.
Much more so than London, even.
And so many states are a red ocean with blue cities. Texas is very much that way
This is essentially all of Australia, too.
With some exceptions (rural northeastern NSW. Parts of Victoria close enough to commute to/be influenced by Melbourne. Southeastern Tasmania), this is the case for pretty much the entire country, bar the two territories...
It's really only the state capitals and the two territories that consistently vote left. The vast, vast majority of the rest of the country rarely ever does so, lol...
In some states one city determines elections which sucks. I take it that is the same in Australia on a national level?
It's also worth mentioning that, since like, 1990-on, almost every Prime Minister of the country (and probably 80% of Opposition Leaders, too) has come from Sydney. Generally the Eastern Suburbs. Both "conservative" and "left" ones, that is.
It's almost a complete joke, at this point. Like, I know you have that with NYC, in the US, but it's... I would say it is considerably worse here.
They don't even bother trying to pretend it's not a "Sydney old boy's club" anymore, smh...
There you go, I'm not talking out of my arse completely:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/AustPM
Excellent website in general, btw... Like, cynical as I am of "official" stuff, this website tends to be very good, for guides like this, if ever you happen to be looking for anything regarding Auspol and the like.
Having been to Old Parliament House, now the "Museum of Australian Democracy", it strikes me that the archivists and curators there are very good at their job, and very passionate, which, again, is a surprise.
The National Library/Museum, by contrast? Yeah, not so much, lol...
Yep. You can't really win the federal election unless you win Melbourne and Sydney (essentially a given. But they carry much larger "weighting" than, say, NY State or California).
But you also can't really win the election unless you carry Tasmania and regional Qld, which offsets that balance slightly, otherwise a non-left government would never be able to win, federally (again, because Melbourne and Sydney)...
In the end, sheer weight of population wins out, because Melbourne and Sydney combined make up nearly 50% of Australia's population, at this point...
Which is absolutely fucking insane, but here we are.
The two territories (less than 1/25 of the population, in total, but like... 1/10 of the land area) therefore deal with this situation by completely throwing away their vote, and literally always voting for the left party...
See also: literally every city I have ever lived in, for one or the other party (usually the lefty one, because I tend to live in "working class"-type cities/suburbs, when I can - for reasons that should be fairly apparent by now). V annoying...
Because they move foreigners into the cities with the gibs, yeah. The USA was 90% white not that long ago.
Just say majority nonwhite. As evidenced by men still being the majority, even when there are more nonwhites than whites, they will still call whites the majority.
I had an argument on Twitter with someone about this, and this guy assured me the cities would win a trade war on account of having all the money. I just wish they would find out.
You can kind of see what happens in the cities when a hurricane comes. There is quickly no fuel. Not many oil refineries in cities, and even Houston runs out of gas. Food would be next if the disruption ever lasted long enough. New Orleans went full mad max after Katrina. Civilization is a thin veneer.