Divide and conquer is one of the oldest games in the book

[struggle4progress]

Have the Federal Bureau of Investigation spread sexual rumors about organizers to disrupt social movements. Oh, it's an old game.

Run down the street, breaking the Jews windows, then bill them for the damage. We're not them. Get on the radio; say Serbia belongs to the Serbs; and demand everybody else be driven out. We're not them. Oh, it's an old old game.

Keep the poor white laborers and the poor black laborers separate. Don't let them get together in a common cause. Make sure the Italian factory workers and the Irish factory workers hate each other. Don't let them get together in a common cause. Keep the coal towns segregated; don't let the Croatians and Finns and Greeks and Slovak and Welsh become friendly with each other. Don't let them get together in a common cause. Bring in men from West Indies and Asia to build the Panama, and keep them at each others' throats. Don't let them get together in any common cause. Oh, it's a very old game.

Not everybody who disagrees with you is your enemy, and not everyone who agrees with you is your friend. Use your head. Don't believe everything you hear. Keep your eyes on the prize.

[TheDebbieDee]

1. I'm amazed that people STILL keep falling for this old trick!

Tell African-Americans that illegal immigrants from Mexico are flooding the country and taking all the jobs.......

[bananas]

2. What is this all about?

I avoid a lot of the news, what happened?

[TheDebbieDee]

4. This was going around in the run up to the 2008

Elections. My Aunt, who is retired and collects a monthly social security check, supplemented her social security income by spending a couple of days a week passing time with an elder member of a well-to-do family or two.

Anyway, she complained to me that it was getting more difficult to find families to work for as "those Mexicans" were willing to provide the same services for a lot less money than she was willing to take.

I told her then to stop watching faux snooze. And I also told her that best way for the repukes to stay in power was to keep black people and brown people at each others throats.

[pansypoo53219]

3. nader hasn't.

nt

[bananas]

6. That's right, Nader hasn't fallen for this. It's a shame so many others have. nt

[Luminous Animal]

5. Nobody is my enemy. Not even the teabaggers.

I've done a lot of long term social justice activism and often similar goals make strange bedfellows. For instance, I was part of a poverty caucus of a feminist activist group that was comprised mostly of bi women and lesbians that worked on behalf of welfare recipients. The women that we worked with mostly were committed congregants of a church of which the pastor regularly bashed the LBGTQ community. Conversely, there were upper class women in our group that clearly looked down on the poor women. It didn't matter. We, at some point, realized we had a common goal and chose to ignore that which divided us.

[bananas]

7. That's a very powerful statement: "Nobody is my enemy. Not even the teabaggers."

There are so many positions I thought were "true" only to learn more and change my mind on.
Thanks.

[Luminous Animal]

8. I grew up in a racist community with liberal parents. None of us backed down from a "friendly"

conversation. High school was painful at times and a couple of times hugely rewarding when I could reach beyond the prejudice.

I'm 53 years old and I've never walked away from a challenge but I will walk away from a fight.