Growing up, we’re each born and initiated into a
given country, religion, gender and ethnic/racial group. Part of every
initiation is the core belief that “our group” is the best. In short, we
willingly and deliberately divide ourselves up, so for any of us to ask, “How did we get so divided,” comes off
as either completely disingenuous, or hopelessly naïve.
NONE
of those things are within any of our control. We didn't choose our nation of
birth, or religion, race, or ethnicity, or gender.
The one true divider is “money,” or achievement.
Over a century ago, America’s first super-wealthy -
the Rockefellers, Morgans and Rothschilds did see themselves as different...and
decidedly apart from “the people.”
After all, achievement, like failure, is something we
choose, or at least bring about by our own actions – both intentional and
unintentional.
Unfortunately, achievement and the wealth and power
it brings, doesn't generally bring along an affinity for others, quite the
reverse. In virtually EVERY case, the initiators of great fortunes were
themselves sharks, who fought their way to the apex of the achievement food
chain. You might think they’d admire those they’d see as fellow sharks on the
way up among the younger generation, but instead they universally fear, loathe and
revile them, because they KNOW their own heirs don’t have the sharpened skills
that adversity hones in a real shark. While they may have the genetics, they usually
don’t have the environment conducive to forging a cut-throat shark.
John D. Rockefeller infamously said, “Competition is a sin.”
It’s views like that which forged our “modern” Corporatist
world. In America, the “Robber Barons” (Rockefellers, Morgans, Carnegies, etc.)
saw only one path to maintaining their fortunes going forward and it wasn't via
the shark infested waters of the free market, at least not in their views.
Their heirs weren't as savvy, nor as cut-throat as they were, so a new alliance
had to be forged.
In the past religions had partnered with
governments, forming Theocracies, in order to more easily both maintain the
illusion of legitimacy (“the Divine Right of Kings”) and compel the people to
obey.
In the “modern” era, where “commerce is king,” the
new alliance became that between government and Corporations...that is
exclusively large, multi-national Corporations.
In America that partnership began in earnest in 1913
with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment.
Since that time that alliance between “Big Business” (multi-national corporations)
and government has only grown stronger.
From that alliance has sprung up a new and separate
class in America – the political class and with a Corporately owned and
controlled media, our mainstream media has been peopled almost entirely from
the members of the political class. When leading politicians want to find jobs
for their children, they’re often found in the media (Chris Cuomo, Jenna Bush,
Chelsea Clinton and many others). Far more insidious is that political
operatives, like George Stephanopoulos (a Dukakis campaign aide and later communications director for the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton) and
Chris Matthews (a Jimmy Carter speech writer and staff member of at least 4
Congressmen) move back and forth between the media and the political world. Moreover,
many of the News Directors in the U.S. media flow easily back and forth between
media and various political jobs.
The media plays a vital part in hiding our
Corporatist government, first by constantly referring to our current and
ongoing economic Corporatism, or “Crony Capitalism” as pure Capitalism and
perhaps more importantly continuing the lie that “America’s political class
springs up from ‘the people’ just like you and me.”
But what the media does that is most vital is to
divide the people, or more aptly to deepen, darken and exploit those divisions
to the benefit of the political class and their corporate benefactors.
The easiest division to exploit is the most obvious
in America, its black/white fault line. Blacks generally don’t trust whites and
vice versa. It often appears that they exist in two separate realities and
thanks, in part, to media manipulation they DO!
Take just two recent national stories that centered
around race, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, and the Michael
Brown killing in Missouri. In both shootings the media presented TO very
different stories – one to blacks and another to whites.
The black version of the Trayvon Martin shooting
portrayed Trayvon Martin as a 12 y/o...a picture of him at age 12 was widely
used by the media...who was followed and viciously confronted by a white
neighborhood watch member, George Zimmerman...who just happened to be Hispanic.
In this version Trayvon Martin was executed in cold blood by a racist white
authority figure, for doing nothing more than “walking while black.”
In the white version, diligent neighborhood watch
Captain, George Zimmerman (who also happened to be an unstable “cop wannabe”),
happened upon Trayvon Martin (a troubled 17 y/o with a history of petty
burglaries) lurking between two residences within the gated community, the way
a would-be burglar might case out a target. In this version, Zimmerman calls
the police to report this behavior and is asked by police dispatch what address
the suspect is at and George Zimmerman gets out of his car to verify the
address and is viciously attacked by Trayvon Martin on his way back to his car.
Trayvon Martin is shot, according to this version, as he struggles for
Zimmerman’s gun.
Two such conflicting accounts that become gospel in
their respective communities not only deepens already existing divisions, but
creates a cavernous gulf between blacks and whites, to the point that rational
dialogue between the two groups is almost impossible. Blacks are indignant that
whites seem to “be justifying the execution of a 17 y/o black youth,” and
whites perceive blacks to be “supporting a black kid’s right to assault a man
for merely following him over some obviously suspicious behavior.” Both sides
see THEIR perceptions as ironclad and right and thus see the other side as both
hateful and immoral.
Likewise, in the Michael Brown shooting, there were
TWO very different and distinct stories told by the media – one to blacks and
one to whites. In the version geared toward blacks, Michael Brown was walking
down the street with his friend Dorian Johnson, when white police officer,
Darren Wilson, came upon them cussed them and tried to drag Brown into his
police cruiser. When he couldn’t do that, according to Dorian Johnson, he then
shot a fleeing Brown in the back, then executed him as the youth turned around
with his hands up, in a sign of surrender.
In the white version, Michael Brown and Dorian
Johnson had just engaged in a petty (under $50 in value) “strong-arm robbery”
at a local convenience store (making off with a bunch of cigarillos). Officer
Darren Wilson approaches the two teens as they saunter down the center of a well-trafficked
thoroughfare and orders them both onto the sidewalk. Dorian Johnson complies,
but the far larger Mike Brown does not and as Wilson opens his car door to
exit, the 290 pound Michael Brown charges the police cruiser, pinning Wilson
inside, then punches the officer in the face and struggles for his gun. Two shots
are fired from inside the car and one of them hits Michael Brown in the hand.
Wilson gets out of the car with his weapon drawn and orders Brown to the ground
and when Brown responds by charging him shoots him until he goes down.
In BOTH
versions any belief in the other narrative is not only inconsistent, but
outrageously immoral. From the “black perspective,” the white narrative “justifies
a racist white cop executing a scared black teen trying to surrender.” From the
“white perspective” the black narrative “rationalizes black lawlessness and a
potentially deadly assault on a police officer.” There is no common ground
between the two versions, nor between those with a vested interest in either
scenario.
Grand Juries are tasked with the unenviable task of
sorting out the facts. In the Trayvon Martin case, Zimmerman’s injuries were
consistent with his version of being attacked and having his head bashed
against the sidewalk, while Trayvon Martin’s body had no other injuries
(consistent with being attacked) other than a single gunshot wound to the
chest. IF Zimmerman was the mad dog
bigot he was accused of being, this would’ve been more of a “crime of passion,”
with multiple gunshot wounds, etc. brought on by rage.
In that case, as flawed an individual as Zimmerman
was, the facts in that particular case seemed to back up Zimmerman’s story more
than that of the narrative that presented Martin as a victim of a racist
execution, and George Zimmerman was cleared of the charges.
In the Michael Brown case, the autopsy showed no
bullets entered Mike Brown’s back, so witness accounts like Dorian Johnson’s (who claimed that Wilson shot Brown in the back) must be dismissed. The two shots fired inside the car also tend to back up
Wilson’s narrative about being attacked inside his vehicle. Moreover, Dorian
Johnson, who complied with the officer’s lawful directive to get out of the
street, was unharmed. Had Darren Wilson been a rogue racist, you’d think he’d
have killed them both. Again, the Grand Jury clears the shooter, but the two
different and distinct narratives live on and that means that those vested in “the
black narrative” feel that the system let them down. Anger and division are exponentially
increased and the reaction of skeptical whites who see nothing but immorality
and racial bigotry in the black narrative, only increases the alienation and
divisions between the two groups.
And the WINNER is...the political class and their
corporate masters.
If you’re not part of the political class, or a
titan of industry or a major Banker, you are part of the rabble...“the people.”
The poor, both black and white are dispossessed. In fact, poor whites (72% of
the poor) are even more dispossessed because they are mostly rural and unseen.
Unlike the black poor, they have no champions in government, the media nor in
corporate suites.
In both the above incidents George Zimmerman and
Darren Wilson were merely working class people who became engaged in situations
that quickly spiraled out of control into life and death struggles.
Ultimately their real crime was survival.
In both cases four lives were ruined, two men killed
and two men’s lives completely destroyed. None of that matters to the political
class because none of the four matter at all to the “elites.”
Most importantly, for
the political class, the people remain divided and distracted. That allows them...the
REAL 1%...to go on exploiting and abusing the rest of us.
