Cui Bono ?

It amazes me that many people fear other people who they will never meet in their lifetime.
And even if the person being feared does somehow come into contact with that individual - the encounter will probably be benign.
But many news papers, television shows and blogs create a short term micro-panic by their reporting of rare events as common.

In reality - most Blacks have no need to fear the Klan.
Most people in the Klan fear Black people more than they hate them.
A good diet, proper hygiene and a minimal amount of exercise will prevent most illnesses.
But recent news reports would have us all run from birds, cows and pigs.
"Others" are often given the blame for all our problems - but news sources would have us run and hide from Blacks, whites, Arabs, gays and Sarah Palin.
In reality, few of these things will have any impact on our day-to-day lives.

Cui Bono?
The ruling class - or really, those who assume themselves to be the ruling class.
Many of our society's problems are created by this class as a tool to keep the lesser classes in line.
Kind of a "Social Munchhausen by Proxy"

George Bush tried to use this principle to entice the American people into backing the Iran War.
At first, it worked.
Many Americans saw Osama Bin Laden as a threat to their ability to peaceably go about living their dull and uninspired lives.
The threat of Osama was exaggerated to the point of causing many Americans to fear any person of Middle-Eastern descent.

The United States government created the problem,
created the (ill conceived) solution,
and then moved to act as the savior in order to more firmly establish it's control over it's citizenry.
How many rights did we willingly give up with The Patriot Act?


Another blogger aptly calls this a "Helgian Headfake"
I guess we have Antonio Gramsci to thank for the modern rebirth of this concept.
What would happen if racism, sexism and any other "Ism" disappeared tonight?
Would we all get along?
Nope.
We would fall into chaos.
We don't really know how to treat people as individuals.

We are conditioned to believe that those who seem to be "other" are somehow a threat to our survival.
This "other" is determined by the ruling class.
For a while the Irish, Italians, Russians, Germans, Polish, etc. have taken their turn at being this "other".
But as social separations became more difficult to detect, "racial" separations became more common.

Jews are still somewhere in the middle.

As with some Blacks - much of this separation is self imposed.

If we continue to focus on how "The Man" is keeping us down - we miss the opportunities presented by our natural abilities and talents.
We determine our own failure.
And this determination only benefits those in the ruling class.
This is why we are taught to fear someone or something that we should have complete control over.
This is why we are not the ones to truly benefit from government programs.
This is why many are dependent on these programs.

My point?
Stop getting your ankles broken by the crossover and focus only on that which really matters.
"What really matters" is determined by the individual - and since we all desire different things, there is no need to suffer from the negative effects from resource competition.
In reality - It ain't that bad.
(Unless one happens to notice all of the things that really are that bad.)