Don’t Fall For the Old Divide And Conquer Trick

[Fireweed247]

The powers-that-be are trying to distract us from the looting of our wallets by the big banks by creating a left-versus-right, us-versus-them drama. You know, the old divide-and-conquer schtick.
Americans from across the political spectrum are furious at the financial elite who have robbed us blind, and their enablers in government.

While at the moment, conservatives are getting more press, those on the left are just as angry. For example, leading progressive Glenn Greenwald wrote an essay entitled “The virtues of public anger and the need for more” cheering the fact that Americans are starting to get in touch with their righteous anger at being ripped off.
Liberals have launched their own version of the tea party protests calling for the big banks to be broken up.
And many leading economists and policy experts have thunderously railed against Obama’s continuation of Bush’s cover-up-the-truth, too-big-to-fail, stick-it-to-the-taxpayers approach to the economic crisis.

On the conservative side of the aisle, Ron Paul’s media coordinator said that the mainstream Republican party has tried to hijack the tea party movement and has “co-opted” its message...To my friends on both the left and the right, I urge you to remember that folks on the other side of the aisle are not the problem. As honest people on both the left and the right agree, the real problems are:

* Lack of honest disclosure about the shenanigans of the financial giants

* Failing to prosecute the criminal actions of those companies and their big wigs

* Failing to break up zombie insolvent companies

* Slipping trillions of dollars into the hands of the richest and most powerful companies under the table

* Gaming the numbers

* And continuing to pursue failed economic policies even after they’ve been proven counterproductive

If we fall for the divide and conquer strategy, where idiots on both sides try to focus our anger on the “other team” instead of the real culprits, we will get distracted, lose direction, and thus became easy to ignore and control. Then the powers-that-be will be able to continue pickpocketing us for years to come.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/dont-fall-for-old-divide-and-conquer.html

[Fireweed247]

1. No one else on DU sees this?

If we cannot see what is happening here, we are no better than the morans we love to laugh at.

[JenGatherer]

3. If you search the forum hard for this you can find some discussion

Yes I see it. There have been a few threads about this issue as well, but it has almost been drowned out by disdain.

[Fireweed247]

4. wow, I'd like to see that

I though DUers were smarter than this. We have lowered ourselves to their level. 'Don't question our president. Shut up, you lost. Haha protesters are being ignored. haha the protests were shut down.'

[Fireweed247]

2. Thanks for the Rec

:hi:

'the mainstream Republican party has tried to hijack the tea party message'

Does this seem possible?

The Ron Paul people organized this to say they don't want to pay higher taxes to pay for this bailout-blatant looting of the American people. I agree with them.

Ron Paul had way more grassroots support and more money than the other Republican candidates in the last presidential election. The corporate media is very afraid of his message and his supporters so they took over the message and made it sound like they were just against taxes in general, against abortion, against every other topic under the sun and I have no problem believing it because that is what they did with our movement. Think ANSWER protests etc. This is a tactic of COINTELPRO.

[kctim]

5. GREAT post!

Sadly, DU is a perfect example of how effective the divide and conqueor strategy can be.

[Fireweed247]

6. ya- I am saddened that most people are having too much fun bashing to see this

maybe it takes a while to sink in or something...or I have been giving DUers too much credit. I tell ya, I go around pumping Duers all the time, talking about how smart we are, about how WE are the movement, we are the most aware of the real issues...

Thanks for responding though :hi:

[TNOE]

7. Totally Agree

Its as "Reptilian" as you can get - they feed off of the fear and anger and discord. People do not realize they are only feeding the evil.

[JenGatherer]

8. I don't want to say I'm post partisan

but I'm so disappointed lately with Obama's administrations lack of prosecution for the war crimes and the lack of prosecution for the fiscal crimes (FRAUD) against the working people of the country that I'm ready to turn in my Democrat card. It's also especially disenchanting to see everyone jump on the anti tax protesters. Some are nuts, sure. Some are intelligent, though. Some are Democrats and some are aware. That's not easy to throw stones at, that's harder to laugh at. Something truly terrible is happening now, the government is funneling trillions of our dollars to overseas corporations in a created non crisis but it's just not getting a lot of press.

a consistent source of non partisan analysis is found at http://www.market-ticker.org/archives/966-Stiglitz-Gets-It.html

[TNOE]

11. Hmmmmm.

"Some are intelligent though". Well, if they were, they probably wouldn't be making such fools of themselves.

I think you are 8 years too late - yea, something truly terrible happened. We had an administration who broke the law, shredded our Constitution and Bill of Rights - and blew the stimulus that was left to them, ignored the multitude of warnings that 9/11 was going to happen on 9/11 and then stole all of our taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and turned them over to their rich family/friends and contributors, not to even mention the HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST Bush/Cheney had with handing all the taxpayer funded projects to Cheney's company - Halliburton, who promptly overcharged, did a shitty job, and then took OUR money and put it in their tax-free save haven credit shelter in the Grand Cayman's. And, where were these "tea bag protestors" when Bush kept raising the debt level - to $10 TRILLION DOLLARS. When did they think the bill might come due on that?

Oh yea, and they lied to start a war too. Sorry if that fact that Obama cannot right 8 years of wrong in less than 3 months bothers you. I suspect you whole-heartedly supported these wars - and never gave a second thought as to how or who was going to have to pay for them.

[Fireweed247]

16. 'if they were(intelligent), they probably wouldn't be making such fools of themselves.'

If they did say something intelligent, you wouldn't see them on the news.

[slipslidingaway]

9. K&R I remember when the left and right came together last year

to try and defeat the FISA bill, we need to keep our eyes on the big picture.

:)

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Good analysis, Fireweed.:thumbsup:

[Fireweed247]

14. Thanks for the K&R

This is from George Washington blogspot but he verbalized my feelings exactly.

[ljm2002]

12. I agree with you...

...on this issue, we need to put aside the left and right labels and realize that there is a lot of commonality. Those of us who recognize we are being royally ripped off, fall on both sides of the political spectrum. Which is not that surprising, since those who are ripping us off also fall on both sides of the spectrum.

Democrats are certainly "better" than Republicans, on financial as well as other issues. I would never argue they are equivalent and I think that GWB's administration was a perfect illustration of that fact. However, when you get right down to it, our politicians are by and large owned by the financial and big business interests in this country and until that changes, we will continue to be ripped off.

[Fireweed247]

20. yes,exactly!

:applause:

[Fireweed247]

13. Thanks for the recs and responses!

:hug:

[bbgrunt]

15. k and r. spot on.

[gtar100]

17. This is exactly *why* I read DU

With so many eyes on a topic, someone is bound to see the bigger picture.

[Fireweed247]

18. me too!

The amazing minds here, all working together...we should be moving forward in our thinking!
(this is why I was slightly embarrassed that so many DUers fell for the bash fest)

[Fireweed247]

19. another

:kick: