Political Weapons of Mass Destruction

[McCamy Taylor]

This is not an all inclusive list, just five particularly nasty ways that big business keeps workers down. Yeah, I’m a Marxist. Call me divisive. Tell me that after two hundred years, Americans still are not ready to handle economic and political justice. Tell me to be glad of what I have. Tell me that nothing I say or do with ever change anything.


I Divide and Conquer

This is the all time, number one favorite of the wealthy class. The Founders said “We must all hang together, or we will hang separately”, because even King George knew how to pit one colonial against another.

The rules here are simple. The wealthy class attempts to create the impression that the opposition (i.e. the American workers) are the cause of each other’s problems. Pit Blacks against LGBT. For instance, talk about how Black folks passed Proposition 8. Or say that LGBT are standing in the way of necessary hate crime legislation for minorities by demanding protections for themselves, too. Note that both gays and minorities are valuable to industry, because they can be counted upon to work hard for minimal wages and benefits. The same goes for women, so be sure to keep them down, too. Pit women against Blacks. Angela Davis’s Women, Race and Class is all about how the women’s movement and the abolition/civil rights movement started as one and then were driven apart—to the detriment of each. Native born versus immigrants---this has been a favorite tactic of Big Business for a long time. Engels observed that the U.S. could not have a socialist workers revolution as long as the bosses could pit one immigrant group against another. Now, western European businessmen are getting into the act.

Recent examples of “divide and conquer”: Tweety telling Americans on the night of the New Hampshire primary that the state went for Hillary, because New Hampshire voters are a bunch of racists. (“Methinks paleface speak with forked tongue”) Since women pushed her over the top in that state, Matthews successfully started a feud between Blacks and women that lasted through the whole primary. Luckily, though we were divided, we were not conquered---that time.

More successful divide and conquer? The anti-immigrant movement which pits American workers against immigrant workers. You would have a job if those wet backs weren’t here. Yeah, a job picking cotton for less than minimum wage. All the good jobs will still get outsourced to India. So, encourage Americans to hate poor, starving Indians who will work for any wage. That way they will forget that it is American employers who are hiring overseas. Blame unions for the low wages of non union members. If we did not have to pay union workers so much, we would pay your more. We promise. .

Here is a challenge. As you read DU today, look for one flagrant example of divide and conquer. I am not talking about something you personally happen to dislike. A gay demanding hate crime protection is not playing divide and conquer. A gay who says he can not get hate crime protection because of Black folks is playing Divide and Conquer---and he probably is not really gay.

If you find such a comment, reply “Solidarity!”

II. Apathy and Despair

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

If the wealthy can not make you hate your fellow worker, then they can try to convince you that you have no power---even if you live in a democracy. This one is especially effective when used against the unemployed or chronically poor. Studs Terkel’s Hard Times is full of stories about the way that being jobless robs people of their self esteem. They begin to think that they do not deserve better. They lose their will to fight. They think that their unemployed status is their own fault----they asked for too much money, and therefore the manufacturing plant moved to Mexico. They suffered a heart attack, and now the employer does not want them on the company insurance.

Election fraud has been a powerful tool for those who spread apathy and despair. Steal an election openly, blatantly. Rub it in people’s faces. Whites have been doing this to Blacks in the south for decades. After a while, the disenfranchised people get the point. Their vote will never count, because it will never be counted. They stop struggling. But you have to be careful how you play the election fraud card. If you do it all at once in a place like Ohio, where people are used to having their votes count, you can stir up a hornet’s nest.

Apathy and despair are nurtured slowly. However, once they take root, they are deadly to any grassroots political movement.

Look for remarks that seem to say It is hopeless. Why bother? Remarks about how the working class will always get distracted by non-issues. How the poor will never come out to vote. How the earth is already polluted, overheated or destroyed beyond repair. How the next election is already lost, and so you should cast a protest vote for the third party. How fixing things which are wrong with this country will anger the rich, who will then strip us of our power to fix the things that are wrong with this country…

Consider replying “You say we can’t, but I say yes, we can.” This attitude won an election. It can work after the election, too.

III. Be Grateful for What You Have, It Could Be So Much Worse

When people live on the edge, they become fearful. What if they lose their daily crust of bread? What if they lose the cardboard box in which they sleep? They stay in jobs which are slowly killing them, because they are scared of losing their health insurance. They stay with men (and women) who are beating them, because being homeless would be worse. They stay with men who are sexually abusing their kids, because homelessness would be worse for the children, too.

If you get some tiny little something, you cling to it even more. Finally able to afford a television? What if someone steals it? Better not turn it up too loud. Got a new pair of sneakers? Don’t wear them. Someone might take them from you. Finally crossed the Rio Grande and now you have a job that is keeping your family back in Mexico alive? Don’t complain to OSHA about the toxic chemicals. Be grateful for what you have.

Attachment is the root of all suffering. This is true for the poor as much as it is for the wealthy. If you think to yourself “I absolutely must protect this one thing!” you stop planning how to make further improvements in your life and in the lives of your family and neighbors. The bigger and more important the thing seems to be, the more it obsesses you. That obsession can lead to blindness and self destructive behavior.

So, for instance, if you have lived all your life in a country in which you have been despised, ridiculed and oppressed for being Black and not white, and if your country finally acknowledges that there is nothing inherently wrong with being Black by electing a Black president, your number one goal in life may become protecting that president. If you are a woman who was denied education, jobs, a mortgage, self respect and you see a woman running a strong presidential campaign, your number one goal may become promoting that woman. Since your political choice is also a form of self defense against oppression, you react angrily towards anything that threatens your choice, as if it threatens your very existence. All of us are capable of being violent (emotionally or physically) in self defense. How many of us can work up a similar passion in the defense of others?

The wealthy do not want us to feel compassion. Compassion will lead one oppressed group to work for equal rights for another oppressed group---and solidarity wins in a democracy. The wealthy want us to feel fearful. They want us scared of our neighbors, scared of our fellow union members, scared of our party leaders. They tell us You have so much more than your mother had! You got to go to law school. You got to buy a house. So what if we have taken away the reproductive freedom of your poor sisters? Just be glad that we allow you to make enough to pay for an abortion out of your own pocket. If you make waves, we will fire you.

We are only able to feel compassion when we stop fearing loss. And guess what? When we stop being afraid, we realize that our fear was an illusion. The fact that a woman ran a strong presidential campaign can never be erased. The fact that the nation elected a Black president will always be recorded in history. The education which our kids have gotten in America will be theirs forever. And all the events that empower our particular group and the groups that we call “others” add up to a general empowerment.

In Buddhism Mara is the demon who destroys happiness by tempting humans to become too attached.



In the United States, the Tea Parties are the demons of temptation. They tell us that we must not do anything to alleviate the suffering of anyone (even ourselves), because it will cost us more in taxes. Money becomes the only measure of happiness and success. Why did Jesus drive the moneylenders out of the temple? Hostile takeover.

Be careful of those who advocate incremental change.

“If we try to pass the Employee Free Choice Act this term, we may anger the corporations, and then they will give to our political opponents.”

“If we give people health insurance---even policies that they can not afford to use, because of high deductibles and copayments—at least they will have their foot in the door. And it will help us win elections in the future, so that we can do something that really helps people get the health care they need.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell. No one wants to hear about your sex life anyway.”

An appropriate response to this kind of fear mongering might be “We will not live our lives in fear.”

IV. Divided Loyalties

This one gets tricky. What if you are a Catholic woman? Do you support abortion rights for your underage daughter or Right to Life for your unplanned grandchild? What if you happen to be both Baptist and gay? Do you stay in the closet or get married and make two people’s lives hell? Black and rich? Do you barter a deal for a tax exemption for your new plant in a community where the (mostly minority) schools are already under funded? Jewish and a health care provider? Do you go into one of the Palestinian territories to give aid to the sick and risk being called a traitor?

It gets worse. What if you are a Catholic Democratic politician and your local priest threatens to excommunicate you? Americans respect religion. Tell them “he is a bad____” and they get alarmed. They may vote you out of office. Americans respect money, too. Tell them “That CEO could increase profits if he just sent those jobs overseas” and they will say that CEO is not doing his job.

Most of us forge our sense of self identity from a variety of things, including our associations with other people. Threaten to cut us off from the society of our peers, and we get nervous. We start having second thoughts about speaking up against oppression. You see this form of self censorship in discussions about Palestine. Defending Muslims is enough to get you labeled (and prosecuted) as a terrorist. Advocating choice for women brands you as unchristian. If you support midwives, right to die and medical marijuana, you are a “bad doctor”.

It is relatively easy to guilt people into taking a stand that they do not really want to take. Rev. Wright is a great man one day and the antichrist the next depending upon whether he is a political asset or a liability to your candidate. Bill Clinton is your best pal MOnday and an object of your ridicule Friday, depending upon what his wife is doing. Only a total sexual deviate void of morals would support John Edwards. Nope, we never really trusted him. Meanwhile, the corporate media tells us that the sexual indiscretions of Republicans are their own damn business.

These kinds of attacks are an attempt to confuse our priorities. Yes, we value religion and fidelity, but a politician is elected to write and uphold the law, not to keep his halo nice and shiny. Yes, making money is the favorite pastime of many Americans, but that does not mean that our elected officials are allowed to vote for their pocketbook instead of their constituents.

The Democratic Party tries to be inclusive. It welcomes all kinds of people under its umbrella. There is also room for folks who have multiple loyalties. The next time someone tries to tell you that taking a feminist stance is racist (for instance, objecting to female genital mutilation) or an anti-racist stance is woman hating (for instance, questioning disparate prosecution for minority sex offenders), tell them “I can support both feminism and civil rights.”

V. Hate Yourself!

You know what? You do not deserve health insurance, because you are poor, and that means you are shiftless and lazy. You would probably just trade your medication for beer money.

And that woman over there. Yes, you! Why should you expect your employer to let you have time off work, because your child is in the hospital. Having children is a luxury. What made you think that you should be allowed to keep yours? Lots of rich families would have been glad to adopt them at birth.

Gay, teenaged and lonely. Go hang yourself!

You say you got raped? How long was your skirt? Were you wearing panty-hose? Why were you walking alone so late at night? Weren’t you just asking for it?

Other Muslims despise you Palestinians. They secretly talk about how dirty and stupid you are. If you deserved more than a life of poverty, wouldn’t the rich Saudis give it to you?

I don’t see why you expect Congress to give you extra unemployment insurance. That money would be better spent on tax breaks for the rich who could actually put the money to good use---if they wanted to. You’ll just blow it on gasoline and food.

Did people make fun of you growing up, because you spoke a different language? That’s because your parents were too ignorant to teach you English. Quick, deny your culture. Embrace the white bread and mayonnaise lifestyle. Vote Republican. No one will ever laugh at you again.



We have been saying “I am somebody” for so long that it is hard to believe that the powers that be can pull the old you are not deserving line. However, elevated social consciousness can not erase the health consequences of living in disparity. The have nots suffer malnutrition, child abuse, neglect as they grow up. These things can permanently alter the brain, leading to depression (which causes low self esteem), alcohol and drug dependence, and another round of domestic violence as an adult. Low education opportunities and increased rate of incarceration combined with unplanned pregnancies keep the cycle going. Business benefits because it has a never ending supply of low skill, low wage workers who will take any shit they are handed with a great big “Thank you, sir!”

One of the consequences of low self esteem----people learn to bury their anger. They don’t talk back to their bosses. They do not question their political leaders. The antidote? Maybe a great big round of “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Direct that anger at its real target, and not at yourself and your kids.

[tech9413]

1. I've been up and down that ladder for better than 30 years

There is nothing new under the sun. Nice post, just a little bit verbose.

To get to the points, Divide and Conquer is easy to defeat when you have the chance to work and live with those that are defined as "other". Contrary to the old saw that "familiarity breeds contempt", when you live with people of different backgrounds on a personal basis, you quickly find out they want the same things, in most cases, that you do. You find that most of your interests are common ground to build a relationship.

The common ground that we should be aware of is that those in power want to remain in that position by whatever means necessary. Those in power generally don't think of the long term cost/benefit of their decisions. They are the ones that look at what it can gain ME today or by the end of the quarter regardless of the long term consequences.

Be grateful for what you have? Give me a break! We should all know by now that we don't get anything we don't fight for. The miners fighting on Blair Mountain and so many other union struggles knew they were putting their life on the line for the rights of others, not just for their own paycheck.

Apathy & Despair

That's a fun one! Reminds me of Dennis Kucinich

If you don't support the ideas you believe in they can never win. I pounded the pavement for Kucinich in the primaries in 2004 because he was the only progressive candidate. I could have gone for any Dem candidate because they were better than the other choice.

First to post elections will never give us a good candidate. Allowing money to equal free speech will make it even worse. Those with the most marbles will always win. That ain't fair even by the most myopic view.

Too many more points to be made, but I'm sure you get the gist of my viewpoint, and I don't want to be to verbose.

[DonCoquixote]

2. Ms Taylor

I may disagree with you sometimes, but when you are on, you tend to be the poet laureate of DU (though Nancegriggs comes VERY close)

[Shireling]

3. Thank you McCamy Taylor

You are "Right On"! :hippie:

[LWolf]

4. +1

[laughingliberal]

5. Excellent post! Sorry, it's too late to rec! nt

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.