Two Kinds of Americans: Us Versus Them (Part I)By Sara Robinson

[Demeter]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_sara_rob_080403_two_kinds_of_america.htm


The old joke goes that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't.

Funny thing is: it's not a joke. In fact, it turns out that this one oddly recursive fact can tell us a whole lot about any country's prospects for social order, political stability, and propensity for violence.

The premise is preposterously obvious and simple -- but all the more powerful for being so. Where people -- from families to nations -- see themselves as one unified group, where everyone's in the same boat together rowing toward a more-or-less agreed-upon future shore, and where there's enough mutual trust and respect to allow people to cooperate in achieving their common goals, the group tends to survive and thrive. The social contract holds. The economy grows. People are willing to invest in the common good. The group prospers.

However: the happy comity that allows us to function as social and political animals inevitably falls apart when one group pulls away from the collective whole and decides that there are in fact two kinds of people in the world -- a righteous Us, and a suspect Them -- and They aren't worthy of respect, cannot be trusted, and should rightly be purged from our midst for the good of the whole. Whenever the name of the political game becomes Us Versus Them, the resulting divisions can quickly shred any sense of shared identity or common future. Nobody wants to invest in anything. Infrastructure and economies fall apart. In short order, the escalating internal conflicts can tear apart families, communities, and nations far more effectively than any external enemy ever could.

Unfortunately, Us Versus Them thinking has become the political norm in America -- and it's gone on so long now that it's shattered our ability to deal effectively with any of the big challenges we're facing as a nation. If America is going to survive -- and especially, if we're going to bring about any kind of progressive order -- it's crucial that we understand how this split got so wide, the magnitude of the damage done, and what can be done to heal it.

This piece will address the first two questions: how it got started, and what it's cost us so far. Next week, we'll look at some of the ways we can begin to bridge the rift and restore America as a functioning whole.....

SEE REST OF ARTICLE AT LINK

[Doctor_J]

1. This is a good read. She omits the role that hate radio has played

in the disaster that has developed over the last 20 years. When the media work as an agent of the fascist powers that run the country, there is little the sane people, regardless of the size of their majority, can do. I fear that her next installment - "what we can do" - will omit addressing this major column of the totalitarian regime.

On the upside, if those who want a divided country should start a civil war (I don't think they will - most are devout cowards and armchair warriors), our victory will be swift and decisive. We are far ahead of them in numbers, in courage, in intellect,and in righteousness.

[Karenina]

2. K&R!!!

[bemildred]

3. "Divide and rule" nt