TV REVIEW: The Nation wastes another opportunity – The Generation Debate

Another wasted opportunity on the current ‘Generation War’ news meme the NZ corporate media have stumbled upon.

To date, corporate mainstream media in NZ are focusing on Boomer vs Gen X vs Millennial. It’s all designed to generate clickbait and produce zero insight.

While the generations are fighting each other the neoliberal welfare state continues to punish and hurt the vulnerable, National continue to keep the immigration flood gates open to prop up the property bubble they need to keep prices artificially high so middle class paper millionaires keep voting for them and Dairy continue to pollute and steal our water.

Our media are less fourth estate guard dogs and more like fourth estate show dogs.

So The Nation was just the latest to hop on this one trick pony and take it for a ride…

Lisa Owen: The recent debate of superannuation and rising house prices is fuelling a generation war. Millennials say they’re being shut out of the Kiwi dream of home ownership and baby boomers are to blame. Boomers say if the young ones worked harder and stopped spending their money on smashed avocado at cafes, they’d save thousands. So who’s right? And what’s the solution? Well, joining me now in the studio this morning are millennials Morgan Godfrey and Jessica Palairet and baby boomers Stephen Franks and Ella Henry. Welcome to you all.

…isn’t it weird that political panel shows in NZ always put reasonable and well tempered lefties up against feral right wing vandals and that the feral right wing vandal always ends up stomping over everyone else because they are trying to have a debate rather than an argument?

Anyway, The Nation missed the point about the generation war like every other mainstream media organisation has…

For all the corporate mainstream media reckons, every single one seem to have utterly missed the biggest issue that defines the real tensions between Boomers and everyone else – neoliberalism.

Boomers grew up with a society fresh from the horrors of the Second World War. Men from all classes, religions and cultural backgrounds stood shoulder to shoulder and sacrificed for democracy and those who returned demanded the values they fought and died for were replicated at home.

So Boomers grow up in a time when it was believed the State had a sacred obligation to provide and support for everyone at all stages of their life. Boomers had a Cradle to Grave subsidisation and this has helped them become one of the wealthiest generations ever.

So what happened?

Neoliberalism happened.

Far right wing Economist Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics argued in the 60s that Government interference in the market was what was creating problems and that the only solution was minimal Government. The Corporate OverLords loved this philosophy and weaponised it for politics throughout the 1970s.

Neoliberalism became mainstream with the election of Thatcher and Reagan and the 4th Labour Government.

Suddenly the belief of subsidising everyone from the cradle to the grave was thrown out by user pays. The universal well funded public services like Education, Health and true welfare agencies that actually cared about the welfare of the people they were meant to care about were suddenly facing crippling budget restrictions so the neo-liberal Government could hand over huge tax cuts to the rich.

This is the fundamental difference between Boomers and Gen Xers and Millennials – Gen Xers and Millennials are the first generations who grew up under neo-liberalism, which is ironically what lifting super is all about – another neoliberal attack on a universal public service.

…it’s almost as if the corporate news media in NZ are not allowed to say ‘neoliberalism’ on air. It’s almost as if there is no way we are ever, ever, ever, ever, ever allowed to examine the 30 years economic experiment that is neoliberalism and critique it rationally.

We are never allowed to examine the chains of hegemony in this country, we are only ever permitted to complain about how our individual chain hurts me personally and how your chain doesn’t cut in as deeply as my chain does.

It’s bread and fucking circuses without the bread or the fucking circus.