Just a short note.

[flewellyn]

Sometimes, when I voice my concerns that the wealthy have far too much power in our society, I am accused, along with other progressives, of promoting "class warfare".

I have only one response.

The wealthy declared the class war long ago. We are declaring that we have noticed.

Comments

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

The wealthy declared the class war long ago. We are declaring that we have noticed. Well said, sir.

It's astounding how few people seem to notice this, or how often the Distraction Technique works to separate people whose interests really do lie in the same direction (i.e., rich whites in the postwar South convincing poor whites that their problem really was black people, or the powers that be now convincing working class folk that "illegal immigrants" are the cause of their economic woes).

Divide and conquer...

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Indeed!

I posted this because a friend told me I should, after I said it in a conversation.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

In A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn advances this theory as to where the ingrained multigenerational racial warfare of the South came from and why it's particularly prevalent among poorer folk. The wealth and power were in the hands of a very few white men, and between the black slaves and the poorer whites (especially the criminals who had undergone transportation and had served out their terms) their biggest fear was that enough people would notice the disproportionate wealth distribution and band together to demand a change. But then they realize, all they had to do was exploit the fundamental human trait of not wanting to be last on the totem pole - if they treated the poor white folk just a little bit better, and gave them just a few more rights than the black slaves, and made them feel like they had a group they could look down on, then they wouldn't dream of banding together with somebody beneath them, even though both classes had some very real grievances with the ruling class.

And now, more than two centuries later, they're still doing it, and we're still falling for it. It's that last fact that makes me wonder if America is truly going to make any progress with social change.

My favorite bumper sticker that I've seen recently: "At least the war on the middle class is going well..."