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Patrick W. ONeil| The Fayetteville Observer

The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has reignited the debate over womens ability to balance motherhood and career. The Christian right quickly made Barrett an icon, praising her for raising seven children while still achieving her professional goals. Meanwhile, commentators on the left argued that Barretts work-life equilibrium was out of reach for single mothers, poor mothers, and people facing chronic illnesses.

The debate Barrett evokes goes back at least to the famous 1978 cover of Ms. Magazine, which depicted a woman torn between a briefcase in one hand and a child clinging to her other hand, asking, Can Women Really Have It All? The question seems somehow both a relic of the early Womens Movement and an albatross hanging around our collective necks: Today we might well update it to ask, Can Women Really Have It All, and Have We Seriously Not Answered This Question Yet?

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But what is surprising is how little effort America has put into ensuring that women could have it all and how close we came, 50 years ago, to doing so.

In its 1966 Statement of Purpose, the National Organization for Women (NOW) defined the feminist agenda as bringing women into the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life. Since then, Americans have indeed forged a national consensus that women should, like Barrett, be able to attain the highest levels of American social and political life.

But no matter how far women climb, motherhood remains a problem: It forces women out of the workforce in their 20s and 30s, just as their careers are getting going just as they would be joining law firms, putting together tenure packets or clerking for Supreme Court Justices. Some studies suggest, indeed, that motherhood accounts for much, albeit not all, of the gender pay gap. There are women who have the resources to withstand this setback Barrett seems to have relied on her aunt for childcare but many do not.

The founders of NOW proposed a simple, obvious solution: Have the government provide child care. True equality, they knew, was impossible until women could get back to work after having children. To that end, they proposed a (free) nationwide network of child-care centers, which, they said, would make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown.

It almost happened. In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act with overwhelming bipartisan support: it cleared the Senate 63 to 17. The law would have offered childcare from infancy, with costs allocated according to need and income to all American parents. After initially backing the bill, President Richard Nixon vetoed it, in terms designed to draw right-wing culture warriors to his side in the 1972 election: He would not, he said, commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing over against the family-centered approach.

Nixons answer to whether women could have it all was an unambiguous No. Rather than letting the federal government provide child-care, Nixons family-centered approach left childcare where it had always been. Women who could afford it would pay others to look after their children; working women with helpful family members would remain dependent on them; and the majority of women would have to perform the same calculation many families do today, weighing the expense of day-care costs against their own career ambitions.

What did the Womens Movement accomplish? In cultural terms, it was gangbusters: My students at Methodist University universally agree that women should have every opportunity to do whatever they want; and theres no way that would have been true 50 years ago. It also did important work removing political and social barriers to equality, inspiring government actions to allow married women to have credit cards and access to abortion, and mandating their inclusion in educational ventures. But it failed to get government to put its money where its mouth was: it failed to give women material opportunities to achieve equality.

Amy Coney Barrett is a product of the same culture wars that kept Nixon in office and elected Donald Trump, and conservatives would be proud to say that she exemplifies a family-centered approach to childcare. But the keystone to real gender equality the kind of equality that would let women have children without paying a price at work was not family-centered; it could only be government-provided. Barrett is proof of what Americans decided almost 50years ago, when they reelected Nixon after he vetoed free, accessible childcare for all Americans.

Can women have it all? Amy Coney Barrett is Americas answer: Some can.

Patrick W. ONeil is associate professor of history at Methodist University and chairman of the universitys History Department.

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Judge Barrett, and why non-Supreme Court nominees can't have it all - The Fayetteville Observer

KARL PoppersThe Open Society and Enemies,published in 1945, should be compulsory reading for those concerned about the existential dangers faced by democracy represented by the cultural-Lefts long march through the institutions.

As a result of cancel culture, the imposition of politically correct language and mind control and the destructive influence of the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter movement, the liberties and freedomstoo easily taken for granted are constantly under attack and, if not already lost, are in danger of being eroded even further.

While theres no doubt the culture wars beginning with the emergence of critical theory associated with Germanys Frankfurt School in the 1930s and the rise of postmodernism during the 1970s are of immediate concern, Popper makes the point the conflict between tyranny and freedom is just as old or just as young as our civilisation itself.

After differentiating between a tribal or closed society characterised by a submission to magical forces and an open society based on rationality and reason, Popper warns that the danger to liberty and freedom represented by totalitarianism is ever present.

He also argues, in opposition to those describing Western societies as riven with structural racism, white supremacism and class and gender inequality, that ours is the best society which has come into existence during the course of human history.

While acknowledging its flaws and injustices, Popper describes Western civilisation as one aiming at humanness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom and one in danger of being betrayed by many of the intellectual leaders of mankind. Otherwise known as Lenins useful idiots.

One has only to compare the Wests record of promoting liberty and freedom with Stalins Russia, where millions were starved and imprisoned, and Maos reign of terror plus Pol Pots killing fields to realise the truth of Poppers thesis.

It was the West that led the campaign to abolish slavery, that enacted a political system based on the sovereignty of the people and a legal system that protects citizens against unwarranted and unjustified government intervention and control.

Quite rightly, Popper concludes Marxist-inspired regimes while promising paradise on earth never produced anything but hell.He justifies his preference for liberalism by arguingthat freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realise equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.

Central to Poppers dismissal of utopian social engineering associated with totalitarian ideologies is his critique of historicism, described as the doctrine that history is controlled by specific historical or evolutionary laws whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man.

History tells us the Marxist belief in the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the arrival of a workers paradise epitomised by the slogan from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs has no basis in reality.

Similarly, the belief that all society needs to progress is centralised planning, where the state dominates the market and there is no room for private ownership and entrepreneurship, has proved a dismal failure.

One of the most dangerous aspects of cultural-Left ideologies, including the deep green movement and radical gender, sexuality and post-colonial theories, is the unflinching conviction that their beliefs are beyond doubt and beyond criticism.

The causal link between carbon fuels and global warming as well as Greta Thunbergs belief that the world will soon end if governments dont immediately ban fossil fuels and embrace renewable, carbon-free energy, notwithstanding the science, is accepted as true and beyond reproach.

Notwithstanding the biological evidence that the overwhelming majority of babies are born asgirls or boys, hospitals now assign gender at birth on the basis that sexuality is a social construct and gender is fluid and dynamic based on ones preference.

Those committed to critical race theory and decolonising the curriculum are convinced that Western civilisation offers nothing beneficial and even that Western science is merely one approach that has no right to be considered superior.

Ignored is the fact that Western science, based on rationality and reason as opposed to superstition and witchcraft, represents a far more credible and effective way of analysing and evaluating truth claims and more closely approximating what constitutes the nature of things.

As noted by Popper, the conviction that history can be manipulated and controlled by those convinced of their own infallibility inevitably leads to a doctrine of power, of subordination and submission.Equally, if reason and rationality are rejected in favour of ideology and cant, liberty is lost.

Such is the poisonous impact of totalitarianism that Popper warns if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

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Why the destroyers of freedom should read Karl Popper - The Conservative Woman

Oh dear, Boris Johnson, not another massive public spanking from 22-year-old Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford? Last time, as part of his food poverty activism alongside the charity network FareShare, Rashford, the child of a single mother, forced the government into a climbdown over feeding vulnerable children during the summer holiday and he was made an MBE. This time, the Labour parliamentary motion that he inspired, which proposed feeding disadvantaged children in England during the half-term/Christmas breaks, was defeated by a shameful 322 to 261 votes.

However, huge numbers of restaurants, cafes and businesses, most probably having a tough time themselves, backed Rashfords #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign, offering food and aid, and councils even some Tory ones said they would be helping. Rashfords Twitter feed became a national information centre-cum-mass outpouring of community spirit. The Tories shouldnt be ignoring Rashford, they should be hiring him.

It was all so avoidable. Along with the rest of the UK, England could have acknowledged the special circumstances of the pandemic and continued helping disadvantaged children. The cost would have been negligible compared with the vast sums grotesquely squandered elsewhere. Now, as I write, the Tories are grappling with a globally shaming PR disaster. The choice is another humiliating U-turn or a half-term/Christmas of stories about ordinary people stepping in where the government failed.

Not only is this appalling conduct by the Tories, it is painfully incompetent politics.

They were probably cynically banking on compassion fatigue, that theyd just have to huff and puff a bit about virtue signallers and the culture wars would do the rest. Big mistake, when hungry kids are involved, and with increasing numbers of desperate families applying for free school meals.

This fiasco also flagged up that many kids were already going hungry. Not only did our country have food banks, some of our schools had food banks, while many teachers routinely have to help feed and clothe vulnerable pupils.

However, the governments biggest error was dismissing the Rashford factor, which is genius in its simplicity. Instead of engaging in ugly divisive manipulation, Rashford reminded ordinary people of the compassion and decency that refuses to be thrashed out of them. If the government wont feed vulnerable kids, then theyll do it. If a young footballer is showing more heart and vision than the government, then theyll back him to the hilt. Its the second time the Tories have dangerously underestimated Marcus Rashford, but have they also underestimated the public? It would appear that, after all, there is a last straw.

I cant help but feel a bit sorry for the tennis great Boris Becker. The six-time grand slam winner, now sports pundit, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, is accused of trying to hide Wimbledon trophies, Olympic gold medals and other prizes from his bankruptcy trustees.

The sympathy sharply declines when you see that Becker is also accused of trying to hide many other things, including large sums of money, shares in companies and property assets. Next September, Becker will face 28 charges relating to not complying with legal obligations to disclose information, all of which he denies.

It will be up to the courts to decide whether Becker is guilty of hiding assets. Still, the cups, the medals you can imagine any sportspersons devastation at letting those go. I doubt that such trophies are all about money. Theyd be more about memories, pride and validation, markers of past glories in your professional sporting life. As the years go by, they would be a way of retaining a sense of who you are, at least who and what you used to be, in Beckers case, an undisputed global champion.

Then again, arguably, prizes could be the one area where ex-sports stars shouldnt fret quite so much. Trophies can be taken away, achievements never can.

Female politicians are too often damned every which way for their looks and clothing, so bravo to Sanna Marin for shaking things up. The Finnish PM sparked a sexism debate by posing for the magazine Trendi wearing a blazer with nothing beneath.

Before anyone combusts, this is a classic look often seen at film premieres. Its not indecent, as the breasts are taped to the inside of the garment. Marins version isnt cut that low and is a modest take on the look. Still, shes been slammed as attention-seeking and inappropriate, while women pledged support by posting images of themselves in similar attire.

Marin, 34, centre-left, of working-class origin, was already an intriguing political character, but now shes even more interesting. Why shouldnt a young, stylish woman wear such a look for a photo spread to accompany an interview in a fashion magazine? Vladimir Putin gets his torso out to ride horseback when hes in peak-strongman mode and where is his tit-tape?

Of course, Marins outfit could be the excuse her enemies need to claim shes not worth listening to, but why do they get to decide? This isnt just about Marin anyway, its about the Gilead-level policing of whatever female politicians wear. Too sexy. Too frumpy. Too young. Too old you get the drift. This is why one tends to see female MPs in the UK adhering to a sober dress code. They know that if they dare express themselves sartorially, even to the tune of half an inch of kitten heel (Im looking at you, Theresa May), they will never hear the last of it.

If Marin has decided shes not going to be intimidated by the chauvinist political fashion police, that can only be a good thing.

Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist

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After Marcus Rashford, cafes step in where Tories refuse to tread - The Guardian

The actor on his life philosophies, securing roles, and his new memoir Greenlights

Would it surprise you to learn that more than 30 years ago, before hed even sauntered across the screen in Dazed and Confused, Matthew McConaughey wrote a poem in which he vowed hed someday become an author?As one of its lopsided verses declared:

I think Ill write a book.A word about my life.I wonder who would give a damnAbout the pleasures and the strife?

This was in 1989, when he didnt know all the twists and turns that awaited him the acting awards hed win, the wife and children hed have, the bracing dramas and banal rom-coms hed make. But he was certain he would live a life worth chronicling.

Now that poem, rendered in its creators arcane handwriting, appears at the start of his autobiography, Greenlights, which Crown published on Tuesday. The book offers a shotgun seat to all the l-i-v-i-n that McConaughey has accumulated, from his upbringing in a tumultuous Texas family to his ascent as the ruggedly serene star of Magic Mike, True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey, who turns 51 on November 4th, enjoys spinning some of these personal yarns, not necessarily because they sound cool but because he believes they reveal certain universal and teachable truths.

To that end, Greenlights is filled with homespun wisdom that McConaughey has wrung from his toils, travels and that time he got arrested while playing bongos in the nude. He has fortified his remembrances with the coinages and maxims he dutifully recorded in decades worth of personal journals and which continue to spill naturally from his mouth.

It is a book that is constantly evaluating itself and its reasons for being, much like its author. He acknowledges that he entered into the project both eagerly and warily, looking to use his celebrity for the opportunity to tell his story in his own idiosyncratic way.

I get what equity I bring as Matthew McConaughey, however you see me, he said in a Zoom conversation last month. He spoke from a den in his home in Austin, Texas, wearing his hair swept back and a flannel shirt that was only partly buttoned up as he peered into his webcam through a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses.

If its a straight memoir he stressed the second syllable with an unexpected French flair as a publisher you could sell some books. What he hoped to produce, he said, was one where the words on the page are still worthy to share if they were signed by anonymous but at the same time be a book that only McConaughey couldve wrote.

Like the bestubbled dude you have seen whooping it up at WWE matches and sermonizing in luxury car commercials, McConaughey is alternately uninhibited and self-serious. He is comfortable referring to himself in the third person and dismisses any suggestion that he has stumbled backward into his professional success.

As he told me, he knows there are people who think, Gosh dang, McConaughey just eases right into everything the guy doesnt seem to have any bumps, doesnt get hit crossing the road. He said he wrote Greenlights partly as a corrective to this perception, to show how much effort it has taken to get where he is.

But McConaughey wants readers to look beyond the boldface name on its cover and focus on its fundamental message. No one can escape hardship, he said, but he can share the lessons that helped me navigate the hard stuff like I say, get relative with the inevitable sooner and in the best way possible for myself.

Codifying his beliefs and putting them down on paper was one test. The next challenge comes as McConaughey releases Greenlights into a world that feels increasingly unsettled and dismissive of values systems one where, like millions of Americans, he and his family have spent the past several months trying to outrun the ol Covid, as he put it.

Im still continuously testing and updating my philosophies, practically daily, he said. And I can do better at a lot of them. As McConaughey tells the story, his youth was dominated by his father, Jim, a former college and professional football player turned pipe salesman who was married three times to and twice divorced from the actors mother, Kay. The books first chapter dramatises a scene from 1974 where McConaughey watched the couple fight ferociously his mother having broken his fathers nose with a telephone while he brandished a ketchup bottle before his parents had sex on the kitchen floor.

It sounds brutal and, as McConaughey told me, This is the reality, but theres humanity in that reality. Jim was tough on his sons, too, but, McConaughey, who is the youngest of three brothers, said, I wouldnt give back one ass-whupping I got for the values that are ingrained in me. When he reflects on his parents, McConaughey said, The love was real. The passion was real. (A few days after McConaughey started filming Dazed and Confused, Jim died of a heart attack while making love to Kay.)

Kay McConaughey, now 88, said in an email that as she raised Matthew, she did not necessarily expect him to become an artist. In fact, that subject was never brought up, she said. I thought he was going to be a lawyer. Even so, she said that she often observed Matthew jotting things down on small pieces of paper about what someone had said or what he thought about what was being said or a way he saw life. Having read Greenlights and seen how Matthew depicted her relationship with Jim, Kay McConaughey said, It was a rocky and passionate love affair we had, but I do wish Matthew would have told more of the stories about me and his dads love, affection and commitment to each other.

Still, she said, she regarded her youngest son as a fundamentally forthright person. What has remained consistent in Matthews life is his honesty and being true to himself, knowing who he was and owning it.

Matthew McConaughey recounts how he landed his breakthrough role as the likable sleaze Wooderson in Dazed and Confused by tracking down the films casting director, Don Phillips, in an Austin bar and charming his way into an audition. A few years later, the not-yet-bankable actor mounted a successful campaign to persuade director Joel Schumacher to cast him in a leading role in his adaptation of A Time to Kill.

To McConaughey, stories like these illustrate how he is not content to merely let life happen to him. Its always been obvious to me that I do not have a laissez-faire attitude, he said. Its a state of being that I work at, continuously, daily, and I break a sweat to get it.

Longtime colleagues say its even more than that: Despite the agreeably dishevelled image that McConaughey projects, they see him as someone who is perpetually preparing himself for opportunities and actively steering himself toward them. As his friend Richard Linklater, who directed him in several films including Dazed and Confused, explained to me, People underestimate the utter intentionality of what Matthews done. Hes really good at going from A to B to C. Hes got a plan, and hes just brave enough and brazen enough to execute it.

The point of the Dazed and Confused audition story isnt that McConaughey simply happened to be in the right place at the right time, Linklater said: He wasnt discovered in a bar he went over to the guy who he heard was casting it. Matthews always playing the long game.

In Greenlights, McConaughey tells the back stories of some of his best-known roles, but he does not take a film-by-film inventory of his entire career. Nor does he share any particularly salacious details from his personal life when he was still a single man, beyond a paragraph in which he writes: I wore the leathers. I rode the Thunderbird. I took a lot of showers in the daylight hours, rarely alone. I partook.

McConaughey told me that while such scenes are generally staples of celebrity tell-alls, he felt that to include them would be in bad taste and bad manners thats why bedrooms have doors on em. However, he does unhesitatingly share two different stories in which he awakens from wet dreams you read that right where he saw himself floating downstream on my back in the Amazon River while surrounded by jungle life and African tribesmen lined up shoulder to shoulder on the ridge to the left of me. He interpreted these visions as subconscious exhortations to travel to Peru, where he immersed himself in the Amazon, and to Mali, where he sparred with a local wrestling champion.

Sections like these shed light on the transcendental side of the author, who is a practising Methodist but also describes himself as an optimistic mystic, forever fine-tuning his personal dials in search of further broadcasts from the universe.

That approach to existence has sent McConaughey hunting for what he calls greenlights the traffic signals that mean go, which he prefers to spell as a single word and which he believes take skill and acumen to identify. To conclude that life is all about luck, he said, is to surrender to fatalism: Quit letting yourself off the hook, McConaughey. If thats true, then run every red light. Youve got your hands on the wheel. Youre making choices. They matter.

McConaughey said he has no interest in being anyones spiritual guru and did not approach Greenlights as a work of self-help. Friends say that yes, this is really how he talks and that his book is one more way that he is trying to express himself.

Its his way of wanting to be heard on another level, Linklater said. Its another level of communication that you cant get in a role. Linklater explained that actors like McConaughey are vulnerable in their work: They dont have total control, he said. Even the most powerful actors Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis are still at the mercy of the parts theyre being offered. Actors need these other outlets.

Sometimes McConaughey dispenses wisdom in miniature pearls, like the beloved bumper stickers he has reproduced throughout the book that sport pithy phrases such as Educate before you indict, I am good at what I love, I dont love all that Im good at and If youre high enough, the suns always shining.

And sometimes he expounds at greater length, like when I asked him how he appears to stay out of Americas toxic culture wars and cultivates liberal and conservative fans alike. Im trying to keep in with it and not out of it, McConaughey replied. For those people who say theres nothing but yellow lines and dead armadillos in the middle of the highway, I say to you this: The armadillos are just fine. Because the right and the left are so far out, theyre not even on the asphalt anymore. Theyre in the frickin desert.

He gave a raspy laugh and added, Man, Ill meet you in the middle.

Getting Greenlights on to the page did not happen swiftly. Crown had its eye on McConaughey as far back as 2015, when the actor went viral with a commencement speech he gave at the University of Houston, structured around his aphorisms (Dont leave crumbs; Dissect your successes; A roof is a man-made thing).

A proposal that McConaughey later circulated to several publishing houses had less story and more of the lessons and philosophy in it, said Gillian Blake, senior vice-president and editor-in-chief of Crown. But in further conversations with him, Blake said, McConaughey did not need much encouragement to turn a retrospective lens on himself.

We had a few long in-person meetings where youd ask him a question and hed say, Oh, yeah, I got a story about that, she said. And then he went back home and wrote it all down. McConaughey said that he had already prepared for the writing process by reviewing the diaries and journals he had kept since he was a teenager. He said he did not work with a co-author on Greenlights but got some needed motivation from his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey.

All of a sudden, my wife was like, Get in the truck, load up your food, water and tequila, and dont come back until youve got something, he recalled. So, bam, I called a friend with a cabin and hit the desert.

Since then, though, McConaughey, his wife and their three children have been living a sequestered life during what the actor calls Covid times. McConaughey said he is a co-operative mask-wearer and social-distancer, but he could not help worrying about reopened schools and sports events leading to a rise of infections. We may see this completely backfire, he said.

It is both a propitious and a terrible time to be plugging a book about how the experiences of a Hollywood movie star can improve your life. And while McConaughey has reorganised himself for several weeks worth of virtual promotion, his greater concerns are maintaining his familys welfare and keeping his own head on straight.

In some moments he tried to alleviate his existential dread with humour. Everyones in a bit of a pickle, and its not a little gherkin, he said. Its one of those big two-pounders you get at a roadside truck stop. Then he would abruptly describe the situation in starker terms: Were going back to our most barbaric selves, he said. But to use an adage that McConaughey might endorse he tried to light a candle in the darkness and find some optimism at an otherwise dire time. Could this actually be a banner year, where things got started? he asked. Where we got cleansed? A little evolution would be nice. New York Times

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Matthew McConaughey: I wouldnt give back one ass-whupping for the values that are ingrained in me - The Irish Times

AT THE recent virtual Tory Party conference Boris Johnson demonstrated that his government is ratcheting up its attacks on the role of the state and using Brexit to divide working people by using nationalist and jingoist rhetoric.

We are proud of this countrys culture and history and traditions; they literally want to pull statues down, to rewrite the history of our country, to edit our national CV to make it look more politically correct, he said.

We arent embarrassed to sing old songs about how Britannia rules the waves while the Labour opposition continue to flirt with those who would tear our country apart.

I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power, 20years ago and say that it wouldnt pull the skin off a rice pudding.

They forgot the history of this country. It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson, and propelled this country to commercial greatness.

You can almost hear the drum rolls and see the Union Jacks waving above the marching storm troopers.

He went on to reiterate the mantra of dismantling the state:We must be clear that there comes a moment when the state must stand back and let the private sector get on with it.

I have a simple message for those on the leftwho think everything can be funded by Uncle Sugar the taxpayer.

It isnt the state that produces the new drugs and therapies we are using. It isnt the state that will hold the intellectual property of the vaccine, if and when we get one. It wasnt the state that made the gloves and masks and ventilators that we needed at such speed.

It was the private sector, with its rational interest in innovation and competition and market share and, yes, sales.

He totally ignored theshambolic mess that has been created by incompetent private companies many owned by cronies of the government which has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands and made the Covid-19 pandemic much worse than it should have been.

The thinking behind the calls for dismantling the state has a long tradition and its more insidious aim is hidden behind a smokescreen.

It is one of the most blatant examples of double-think. Both Thatchers and succeeding Tory governments have undertaken massive state intervention and an increased consolidation of state power but on a class basis, while describing it as giving back control to the people.

Regulation of business and the economy has been pared back under the guise of tackling red tape granting monopoly capital almost total freedom to operate as it sees fit, polluting the environment without repercussions and paying minimal taxes.

Trade unions, though, have found themselves shackled by draconian legislation: no solidarity action or secondary picketing allowed, strike ballots and internal elections have to be held under voting rules that are extremely restrictive.

Workers rights have been eroded. Local government has been so hollowed out and underfunded that it has become barely functional and is now largely a tool for implementing central government policy at local level.

The Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit have given the Tories the unique opportunity of rolling back the state even faster than they could have hoped.

There has been a concerted privatisation of many areas of the NHS without parliamentary debate or scrutiny.

The drive to complete Brexit is allowing them to ride roughshod over workers rights, food standards and environmental protections.

Many more people today are realising that we are living in a dysfunctional capitalist system subject to continued crises.

There has been a renewed interest in socialism, not only here but in the US too.

With the increasing militancy and success of a number of new, basicallyanti-capitalist organisations, from environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion, the international Occupy movement, to Black Lives Matter and numerous smaller ones, the ruling class is seriously worried about the stability and resilience of the prevailing system.

This why it is no longer satisfied with defining the shape of the economy, it wants to take full control of British culture as well.

As Andy Beckett in the Guardian (October 10 2020) writes:Starting with the Brexit campaign, the right has launched a series of culture wars: against Remainers, the BBC, the universities, the legal system, the big cities and seemingly anywhere that liberal or left-wing thinking still lingers.

This culture war has appealed to conservative Britons, ensured that debates about patriotism and social cohesion are conducted on right-wing terms and helped the Tories win its recent parliamentary majority.

The latest culture war is the war on woke (woke: being alert to injustice in society, especially racism)being waged by the Tory press.

Right-wing commentators describe wokeness as a cult, an epidemic, anti-Western, totalitarian, and even as cultural Marxism a favourite far-right conspiracy theory.

Last month, the Department for Education instructed schools not to teach pupils about extreme political stances such as the desire to overthrow capitalism,or to teach victim narratives that are harmful to British society.

Such policies reveal the underlying fears of the ruling class and of a government that sees culture wars as a way of gaining electoral advantage.

Only last month, Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley made it clear what is involved: Boris and Cummings understand that you cant change Britain unless you march through the [cultural] institutions that you cant simply cede culture to the left.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made it clear to them that they can control culture because they hold the purse strings.

As Stanley put it: When youre in power and you control the purse strings of many cultural institutions, you do have a say to change their political balance.

The idea that dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries like Charles Moore and Paul Dacre could be proposed respectively as chair of the BBC and head of Ofcom, both supposed to be politically neutral roles, can be seen in this context.

Similarto today, the early 1980s saw an upsurge of British activism for racial, sexual and gender equality.

Parts of the left became involved, in particular with the support of the Greater London Council under Ken Livingstone.

The right-wing press and the Thatcher government were appalled and saw it correctly as a major threat to the status quo.

But they also saw a political opportunity. Aided and abetted by the right-wing press, branding all practitioners of the new identity politics the loony left, they created a bogeyman that helped the Tories win a series of elections.

Today, political stances which would have been considered loony in the 1980s, such as celebrating multiculturalism, are widely accepted.

Johnson has devoted his political career simultaneously spouting both liberal and reactionary views, sometimes in the same sentence and generally getting away with it. Populists and the people who vote for them are rarely bothered about ideological consistency.

Since the Thatcher era the idea of a benevolent state has been vilified as anathema by Tories and right-wing pundits.

The nanny state became a cliche term of abuse and a put-down for all those calling for state regulation of any sort.

It was argued that state intervention damages the economy and society and that it is authoritarian and undemocratic.

Just leave the market to regulate itself and social harmony and stability will prevail went the mantra. Johnsons government has adopted this policy with a new vehemence.

Thatcher used it as a battering ram to destroy any remaining belief in the effectiveness and need for socialist ideas. She talked of rolling back the frontiers of the state and used it to justify her objectives.

In a 1987 interview with Womans Own magazine, she said that people had become too reliant on the state: They are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing!

She saw state regulation as the slippery slope towards socialism which she hated.

Thatcherism represented a systematic, decisive rejection and reversal of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties had largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry and close regulation of the British economy.

Since Thatcher the programmes of successive Tory governments and of Blairs New Labour basically accepted the central interventionist measures of Thatcherism such as deregulation and the privatisation of key nationallyowned industries, maintaining a flexible labour market and marginalising trade unions, while centralising power.

Governments could get away with such policies in times of relative material affluence, entrepreneurial opportunity and full employment.

If democracy is to mean anything, decision-making at local level has to be a vital part of it, as is meaningful and functioning local government.

By increasingly concentrating power at national level and starving local government of proper funding, we have seen an unprecedented concentration of that centralised power the complete opposite of what right-wing pundits have been telling us is happening.

Johnsons government is pushing for a complete elimination of the state as a means of regulating the economy and bringing about even a modicum of social justice.

We shouldnt forget, though, that the right isnt always as confident and all-conquering as it sometimes seems. The measures being forced through by this government demonstrate a fear as well as power.

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The culture wars and rolling back the state - Morning Star Online