From Howard Zinn "People's History..."
The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased.
There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, lee-ways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media- none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.
One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.
This should not be about a single incident in Ferguson, or even about big picture black/white relations.
This should be about all of us fighting over the leftover scraps -- under the table, not at the table. Until we get the focus off meaningless distractions -- the same old story that never really changes -- we will continue to be manipulated and exploited until we wake up and see what is really happening here.
We are Michael Brown, Jr. We are Darren Wilson. We are the dogs at the foot of our masters.
= new reply since forum marked as read