Summary: Obama’s election brought hope for a new era of race relations in America. Instead we appear to be starting another downward part of the long cycle. As usual, these things just don’t happen — and bad relations work well for the 1%. Today we look at some of the ugly propaganda that guides American in the 21st century (so similar to that of the 19th and 20th C). This is the 2nd in a series of posts showing how we’re losing America.
The aide {Karl Rove} said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.
He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
— Karl Rove, as quoted in “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” by Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, 17 October 2004.
One of the momentous and astonishing aspects of our time is that conservative leaders have erected a Potemkin village for their followers, and gotten them to move in. A fake history (e.g., the failures of FDR, we won in Vietnam excerpt for a “stab in the back” by peaceniks). A fake economics (e.g., cutting taxes usually increases tax revenue). A fake science (e.g., creationism, climate science is fraud). Over time they’re moving further away from reality. Divorcing people from mainstream and authoritative sources is a reliable tool of social control (effectively used, for example, by cults). This probably will not end well for America.
διαίρει καὶ βασίλευ.
— ‘Divide and rule’, attributed to Philip II of Macedon (332-386 BC).
Today we look at an example showing they build myths in the minds of their flock, and lead them. In this case, playing on people’s deep fear of the “other”. The economic stress on blue collar demographic creates pressures with no outlets, as they don’t see the 1% in its protected enclaves — and have been taught that their gradual impoverishment is just — as their ancestors believed in the divine right of Kings. If the pressure grew without outlet we might get new political alliances and perhaps even change.
So they’re given myths (ideally based on exaggerations instead of fiction) creating enemies to fear. Such as Islamic fundamentalists abroad (rebelling against their corrupt, oppressive western-backed governments), so they can feel vicarious satisfaction from our bombing and killing.
But who to use as enemies at home? We don’t have the long deep history of antisemitism that’s served European elites so well. But America has an almost as deeply rooted racism, that’s served the same role as well for so long. It’s easily exploited using tried and proven methods, but the process is not pretty.
“First and Always Protect Womanhood”
— KKK motto, written on banners carried at their marches.
The fear of powerful young “bucks” (i.e, blacks as animals) rampaging through the streets, threatening property and white virgins, evokes a visceral fear in many Americans (as the sight of a Black president evokes terror and disorientation). Careful mining of the news and videos creates the raw material for a bonfire of racial fear. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles and videos like these on the Internet. Here are some from more respectable sources (i.e., “respectable”).
- “Black Mob Violence Now a Sickness“, Colin Flaherty, American Thinker, 26 November 2014 — They run many articles on this theme (see them here).
- “Top 200 Black Mob Violence Videos” at the “White Girl Bleed a Lot” website (promoting Colin Flaherty’s book (see below), undated (July 2013?).
- “Hundreds of black ‘young folks’ battle cops. Mob runs wild for 90 minutes in mall parking lot.“, WND, 26 December 2013.
- “Black Mob Violence in Rochester: Get Used To It“, Colin Flaherty, FrontPage, 9 January 2014.
- “Black mob violence: Ferguson is part of an epidemic“, Kimberly Morin, Examiner.com, 28 November 2014.
Colin Flaherty is a key figure in this, an entrepreneur of racial hatred. He wrote ‘White Girl Bleed A Lot’: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It
A reminder from history
There have been race riots aplenty by both Blacks and Whites in our past. But these stories about Black Americans are have been justifications for horrific acts in our past, among the most serious acts of mob violence in our history. Such as the thousands of Blacks lynched by White mobs.
Even more tellingly about the social role of White mob violence, when Blacks formed prosperous self-sufficient communities Whites found trumped-up incidents to justify burning them to the ground. Such as the destruction in 1921 of the Greenwood District of Tulsa OK — the wealthiest black community in America at that time, also known as “the Black Wall Street”. And the leveling of Rosewood FL in 1923.
For more current information about extremist groups and hate crimes see the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Posts in this series showing that we’re losing America
- More evidence that we’re losing America. It’s not too late to act.
- Stories about a rising tide of black mob violence!
For More Information
See the posts about the Ferguson incident and the following protests. Also see these posts about racism:
- Tribalism and racism are the 1%’s best friends, as we see in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
- Fighting America’s dark side. Fighting against those seeking to divide and weaken us.
- Well-funded organizations inciting us to hate & fear, again. How gullible are we?
- A look into the GOP mind: untethered from reality and drifting in the wind.
- Swarms of hate against Obama and George Will, peasants’ protests in New America.
- Examples of blind allegiance to tribal truths, keeping us weak & ignorant.
