Divided and Conquered

[MichSwampbuck]

Divide and conquer, a technique used to weaken the enemy is often applied to left/right politics. I hear the claims that the deep-state players are using this to control the masses by keeping them at each other's throats and distracted from the people behind the curtain pulling the strings.

I believe whoever is using this technique has succeeded. There is no middle ground now, there is no opinion, no matter how logical, fact-based, or unbiased, that will not be placed on one side or the other. Families are being torn apart by this political polarity and it sure seems to be serving a purpose. My girlfriend experienced this personally at a recent funeral in her family.

I have an example of my own to illustrate the point. The incident with the black kid in Texas at the track meet who stabbed a white kid who told him to leave his seat. When that report hit the media, the facts were scant and people automatically made assumptions, you know the kind. A young black male stabs a white guy to death, so it is a problem black people have with violence. The other side of that is young southern white boys threatening an "uppity black" to leave his seat who then defends himself.

If you are a liberal who would wonder out loud if the black kid was a murdering criminal, your liberal friends would call you a red-neck Trump MAGA Nazi. Conversely, if you were a conservative white guy who wondered if this was some racist southern white boys threatening a black guy who had the right of self-defense, then you are automatically a closet liberal or some kind of political double agent. In some circles, you'd be called a fag or a Jew as well.

Now, I'm hearing that this black kid had it out for the white kid he stabbed to death, if so, then it was premeditated murder. Then, as predicted, this kid is the new liberal martyr who needs a go fund me for his defense and is racking up the defense funds as we speak. Meanwhile, the media is trying to imply the white kids were racist militant MAGA types because of a picture of them out hunting in camo clothes.

Unless I am making my observations public in the appropriate echo chamber, I will be doomed to be labeled one way or the other. You cannot be moderate anymore, you can't look at both sides and voice your independent thoughts and ideas without being placed in one camp or the other. We have already been divided and conquered when moderate objectivity is no longer allowed.

If I were to point out the extreme propaganda and rhetoric of both sides, I'd still get pigeon holed into one side or the other. I find that I must self-censor in public now, I discovered this at a local restaurant recently, not that I disagreed with the talk I heard. I have to keep it to myself for the most part, and that is the goal here, to stifle our free speech and keep us divided and unorganized.

[Maxmars]

Being a moderate is not so difficult... it's just that in an environment as deliberately polarized as the media presents,
no one is willing to say "Our crap is the same as their crap with a different color t-shirt."

While the politics may not align... the "social media" behavior is identical either way.

And current media programming uses the excuse that "the people want..." while
force-feeding them the same crap most of us recognize as garbage thinking...
"informing us" that "This is what all civilized people (especially you,) think."

Consider the irony of a "politically moderate" activist.... 

[UltraBudgie]

It is fun to try and avoid political labels. For example instead of saying "Democracts think this and Republicans think that", say "Americans think this and Americans think that".

The country sounds absolutely schizophrenic when referred to in this manner, and I think that's closer to the truth.

It is crazy that a nation so absolutely at war with itself is considered a "healthy" anything, Democracy or otherwise. You'd think that if there was disagreement they'd want to figure out what is best and right for themselves, iron out differences, and move on with life. The constant self-hate just makes them batshit insane, which is consistent with America's behaviour in the world.

[MichSwampbuck]

I posted this in other forums and a point was put forth that AI and social media operate on likes and clicks, with polarization occurring organically because you are getting what you ask for. No one will click on topics of no interest, and so it conforms to your biases.

IMO, instead of polarization being a symptom of a chaotic system, the media helps create it by offering specific information and then perfecting it based on clicks. If it bleeds, it reads and if doom porn based fear is what the goal is, it is working and if polarization isn't the goal, it should be. The same could be said of advertising when the goal isn't selling just to sell a product.

[UltraBudgie]

If it bleeds, it reads and if doom porn based fear is what the goal is, it is working and if polarization isn't the goal, it should be. The same could be said of advertising when the goal isn't selling just to sell a product.

Ooo that's a good point, those "dichotomy" advertising "rivalries" that serve really to benefit both, eg Ford vs Chevy, Coke vs Pepsi, Mac vs PC, Trojan vs Durex, etc.

Part of building up the image of "we're so different from the alternative!" is to both hide the fact that they're 99% the same, and to squeeze any alternative to the dichotomy down to single-digit market share. Fill your mind like it's one or the other. Just like politics!

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Divide and conquer, a technique used to weaken the enemy is often applied to left/right politics. I hear the claims that the deep-state players are using this to control the masses by keeping them at each other's throats and distracted from the people behind the curtain pulling the strings.

I believe whoever is using this technique has succeeded. There is no middle ground now, there is no opinion, no matter how logical, fact-based, or unbiased, that will not be placed on one side or the other. Families are being torn apart by this political polarity and it sure seems to be serving a purpose. My girlfriend experienced this personally at a recent funeral in her family.

I have an example of my own to illustrate the point. The incident with the black kid in Texas at the track meet who stabbed a white kid who told him to leave his seat. When that report hit the media, the facts were scant and people automatically made assumptions, you know the kind. A young black male stabs a white guy to death, so it is a problem black people have with violence. The other side of that is young southern white boys threatening an "uppity black" to leave his seat who then defends himself.

If you are a liberal who would wonder out loud if the black kid was a murdering criminal, your liberal friends would call you a red-neck Trump MAGA Nazi. Conversely, if you were a conservative white guy who wondered if this was some racist southern white boys threatening a black guy who had the right of self-defense, then you are automatically a closet liberal or some kind of political double agent. In some circles, you'd be called a fag or a Jew as well.

Now, I'm hearing that this black kid had it out for the white kid he stabbed to death, if so, then it was premeditated murder. Then, as predicted, this kid is the new liberal martyr who needs a go fund me for his defense and is racking up the defense funds as we speak. Meanwhile, the media is trying to imply the white kids were racist militant MAGA types because of a picture of them out hunting in camo clothes.

Unless I am making my observations public in the appropriate echo chamber, I will be doomed to be labeled one way or the other. You cannot be moderate anymore, you can't look at both sides and voice your independent thoughts and ideas without being placed in one camp or the other. We have already been divided and conquered when moderate objectivity is no longer allowed.

If I were to point out the extreme propaganda and rhetoric of both sides, I'd still get pigeon holed into one side or the other. I find that I must self-censor in public now, I discovered this at a local restaurant recently, not that I disagreed with the talk I heard. I have to keep it to myself for the most part, and that is the goal here, to stifle our free speech and keep us divided and unorganized.

Beats a uniparty. Until now there was just a candor to it all that is no longer needed. It's much more Nielsen Ratings driven now. Especially since the rise of cable TV news, which largely killed the integrity of journalism.

It took the former traditional libertarian AM radio show opinion of Glenn Beck and turned it into a senationalist troll in a matter of years.

The current division is a media bias chart. The ones on each side of this image, that killed the integrity of journalism, also killed the civility that used to exist.



And I'm starting to doubt we can recapture that AM syndicated radio political era (before cable's rise) when we could just call each-other short-sighted morons without the extra bit of engineered hate from bias and sensationalist news.

Like Trump really isn't a dictator. He's not the feared king making any proclamation he wants. He is still kept in check by congress and the courts. He can only troll to nudge us incrementally, but not without losing support along the way, which pulls back the pendulum's wanted momentum. It is a cycle and the plan all along. But I'm still going to choose to ignore my own center and compare Butler to Rastenburg. Hypocrisy be damned.

He appears to be the candidate cable news demanded and attracted into form. He was made by ratings. And the divided to be conquered polarized country is a representation of that as well.

It will take until people get sick of that and go sit in a flower field.

[MichSwampbuck]

IdeomotorPrisoner, I like the media bias chart. I'm going to save that one.

UltraBudgie, you made a good point about the usefulness of polarity in advertising. "Tastes  great!" - "Less Filling!" when all along they are both corporate piss water that any local craft beer (or home brew for that matter) would blow away.

[Good Bacteria]

People won't like the way this tastes, but we have to have it out in this country sooner or later.

I certainly don't want anything of the sort, but again, we are faced with a large amount of people who literally want to destroy the country. LITERALLY.

What then is the purpose of all this? Criminals get the red rug and the government is ACTIVELY trying to disarm/neuter the citizenry.?? What is the indication that it's beyond saving?

The left thinks they are at war, and as unstable as their base is, that's something that needs to be addressed pronto before they do something really really stupid.

[MichSwampbuck]

People won't like the way this tastes, but we have to have it out in this country sooner or later.

I certainly don't want anything of the sort, but again, we are faced with a large amount of people who literally want to destroy the country. LITERALLY.

What then is the purpose of all this? Criminals get the red rug and the government is ACTIVELY trying to disarm/neuter the citizenry.?? What is the indication that it's beyond saving?

The left thinks they are at war, and as unstable as their base is, that's something that needs to be addressed pronto before they do something really really stupid.

Well, with division and polarity, and no sure middle ground with no moderate approach, extreme reactions are to be expected.

Session? A (hopefully) friendly divorce of certain states without armed conflict? Or shoot them all and let God sort them out?

I'm not advocating a final solution here with that last bit. I think that states should be more self determining and wield power based on population and shear economic prowess, not bow to the over-sized and bloated parasite known as the federal government.

[Maxmars]

Beats a uniparty. Until now there was just a candor to it all that is no longer needed. It's much more Nielsen Ratings driven now. Especially since the rise of cable TV news, which largely killed the integrity of journalism.

It took the former traditional libertarian AM radio show opinion of Glenn Beck and turned it into a senationalist troll in a matter of years.

The current division is a media bias chart. The ones on each side of this image, that killed the integrity of journalism, also killed the civility that used to exist.

...

And I'm starting to doubt we can recapture that AM syndicated radio political era (before cable's rise) when we could just call each-other short-sighted morons without the extra bit of engineered hate from bias and sensationalist news.

Like Trump really isn't a dictator. He's not the feared king making any proclamation he wants. He is still kept in check by congress and the courts. He can only troll to nudge us incrementally, but not without losing support along the way, which pulls back the pendulum's wanted momentum. It is a cycle and the plan all along. But I'm still going to choose to ignore my own center and compare Butler to Rastenburg. Hypocrisy be damned.

He appears to be the candidate cable news demanded and attracted into form. He was made by ratings. And the divided to be conquered polarized country is a representation of that as well.

It will take until people get sick of that and go sit in a flower field.

I heartily agree with the observations you present in your post.

I truly do not think all is lost... but the opportunities to revive such a thing are being actively eliminated...
(Thank you FCC/Industry lawyers  /sarcasm)

It can be possible to see such a revival, assuming no active agency (meaning more than just government) is against it directly.

Meaning... it will have ZERO media presence... it will have to be sought - no advertising in media.
It can make NO money... total LOSS. (No, not "non-profit"... that's their gimmick.)
It cannot be penetrated or "used" by "media" as a narrative asset.
Gonna suck for any extroverts out there looking for a fix.
Not gonna be pretty... no media glitz or support.
Pipe dreams, huh.

I think it's eventually going to be more or less self-evident which corporate mega-houses are having it
"their way" in the Big Show... and who is most effectively "lobbying" the system.

We are a people whose minds have been struggling against highjack for generations... there's no denying an
awakening is to come... the "bad guys" pretty much suck wildly at this point...

Politics is a subject... not a dramatic theme.
Politics is defined neither by "actors," "politicians acting," nor activist sloganeering and media.
Forcing it as such on the population was the beginning of what seems now, a much greater problem.

You know... I hear of Big Tech, Big Pharma, The Big Bank, and all that jazz...
and all they've brought us is the "Big Show."

... which we immediately exploit... 

People seem no longer able to envision a world that doesn't center around "being told" things by pretty
people, colors and lights... good music...

(Maybe I'm just afraid that's not where many answers are actually found... only perhaps dreamt of.)