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Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see som

Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see someone that has actually looked into it and tried to compile a bit of data.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
- wheremind 8y ago
  I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.
  - jryan49 8y ago
    I went to a few of the protests to watch, not really take part. It seemed to me that they had a crazy flat purely democratic structure (or unstructure :P). So much in fact that they couldn't decide on what to focus on or how to move forward. A lot of them also seemed to not understand how our financial system works.
    - wheremind 8y ago
      Yeah, I agree about the street protests themselves were pretty dysfunctional, that wasn't really what I was talking about. The protests were really only the tip of the iceberg at the time. There seemed to be a much wider focus on the gaming of systems and regulatory capture (mostly) by a financial industry that pretty much seemed to be just a state protected tool for money farmers.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago

This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

wheremind 8y ago
I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.
- jryan49 8y ago
  I went to a few of the protests to watch, not really take part. It seemed to me that they had a crazy flat purely democratic structure (or unstructure :P). So much in fact that they couldn't decide on what to focus on or how to move forward. A lot of them also seemed to not understand how our financial system works.
  - wheremind 8y ago
    Yeah, I agree about the street protests themselves were pretty dysfunctional, that wasn't really what I was talking about. The protests were really only the tip of the iceberg at the time. There seemed to be a much wider focus on the gaming of systems and regulatory capture (mostly) by a financial industry that pretty much seemed to be just a state protected tool for money farmers.