www.NewDemocracyWorld.org
INTRODUCING 21st CENTURY DIVIDE AND RULE
Back in the 19th and much of the 20th century, it was fairly easy for the ruling class to divide and rule the American public. The trick was straighforward: single one group of people out (such as blacks, obviously, but also others when convenient), treat them much worse than the others, tell lies about how they are less than human (less intelligent, more criminal, lazy freeloders, smelly, whatever) and Presto! Divide and rule keeps the have-nots turned against each other with mutual mis-trust and resentment and fear so they can't unite against the upper class rulers.
Yes, those were (for the ruling class) the "good old days" (when America was Great?) But now, alas (for the ruling class), the old trick doesn't always work so well. Most people are too savvy about the old trick. They can spot it, and when they do they condemn it instead of falling for it. What's a ruling class to do?
The answer is 21st century new and improved divide and rule. It works like this. It's a three-step procedure:
Step #1. Politicians beholden to the ruling class write a law that is designed to be perceived by about half the population as very bad for some reason: absurd or noxious or unfair (even racist or wrongly discriminatory in some other way.)
Step #2: The liberal politicians and liberal media (who are beholden to the ruling class, of course) declare that the law's purpose is to do something very good (for example prevent unjust discrimination.) And they condemn anybody who objects to the law as a very bad person (a racist or bigot, for example.) And they never acknowledge that the law is actually absurd or noxious or unfair.
Step #3. The conservative politicians and conservative media (who are also beholden to the ruling class, of course) condemn the law as being absurd or noxious or unfair.
Presto! About half the population views the half who support the law as being bad people: utterly idiotic or hostile to those who are harmed by the noxious or discriminatory aspect of the law. And the other half of the population views the half who oppose the law as being bad people: racist or bigoted, for example.
That's 21st century divide and rule. Unfortunately it works very well, because it appeals to everybody's desire to be AGAINST something bad such as racial discrimination. (Note that the roles of liberal and conservative politicians/media can be reversed too, and it works just as well.)
Some examples of how to use the new and improved divide and rule trick:
- Write a law called Affirmative Action that entails making the minimum test score that is required for somebody to get hired for a job or admitted to a school higher for whites than non-whites and accuse anybody who objects to this of being a racist. Go here to read about this.
- Write a law that makes it a crime (punishable by a $50,000 fine and a year in jail) for a woman in a public-access shower or locker room to tell a naked adult person there with male genitalia to leave, and accuse anybody who objects to this of being a transphobic bigot. Go here to read about these laws.
- Keep it secret that Israel's government commits immoral violent ethnic cleansing of non-Jews (Palestinians) in Palestine for the purpose of controlling and oppressing working class Jews, and then write a law making it illegal to boycott Israel and accuse anybody who objects to this law of being an anti-Semite. Go here to read about this.
- After SECRETLY (this is key!) forcing Hispanic people south of the U.S. border to illegally immigrate in order to survive, write laws aimed at preventing them from immigrating and deporting those who already have, and then accuse anybody who objects to these laws of being a person who denies Americans the right of Freedom of Association (in particular the right to determine which foreigners can immigrate to their country) and who wishes to inflict the harms caused by massive immigration onto Americans. Go here to read about this.
- Write a law that purports to be for equality and against homophobic bigotry but that actually gives social approval to the practice of doing something that many reasonable people think is harmful to children. Then accuse the people who object to this law of being homophobic bigots. Can you guess what law I'm referring to? Go here to read all about it.
- Read here how the ruling class also uses the abortion issue to divide and rule us in a way very similar to the above examples.
Why Does the New and Improved 21st Century Divide and Rule Work So Well?
It works for two reasons. First, it's new and people haven't had time to get wise to how it works yet. Second, virtually nobody is exposing this new and improved method of divide and rule. Organizations on the Left and the Right, instead of exposing the divide and rule trick, just take one side or another and condemn the people on the other side--exactly what the trick is designed to make them do.
Why doesn't the Left expose the new divide and rule?
The reason the Left accepts, rather than exposing and rejecting, the new divide and rule framework, is this. The new divide and rule appeals to the desire of people to be good, to be opposed to bad things such as racial discrimination or bigotry. The ruling class trick depends on making people believe that lots of other ordinary people are actually for something bad such as racial discrimination or bigotry. Here's the problem. The Left already does believe that. The Left has so much contempt for ordinary people (it views them as "sheeple" and complicit and racist and homophobic etc., because they are supposedly "dehumanized by capitalism") that it is eager to agree with the new and improved divide and rule that purports to aim to stop the bad half of the population from doing the bad thing that it supposedly wants to do. Read about the origin of this problem with Marxism here.
LET'S OVERTHROW THE NEW DIVIDE AND RULE TRICK
There's only one way to overthrow the new and improved divide and rule trick: 1. expose it for what it is instead of simply taking one side in the phony debates it generates; 2. tell the public the key facts that the ruling class censors, the facts on the basis of which--if known--most people would come to the same common sense conclusion; 3. develop proposals on the "hot button" issues that really do express the common sense good and decent values of the vast majority of people.
The most unifying theme is egalitarian revolution to remove the rich from power and have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor, as discussed here.
This article may be copied and posted on other websites. Please include all hyperlinks.