by Brandon Smith
It was the winter of 1939, only a few months earlier the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Third Reich had signed a partially secret accord known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; essentially a non-aggression treaty which divided Europe down the middle between the fascists and the communists. Hitler would take the West, and Stalin would take the East. Stalin’s war machine had already steamrolled into Latvia. Lithuania, and Estonia. The soviets used unprecedented social and political purges, rigged elections, and genocide, while the rest of the world was distracted by the Nazi blitzkrieg in Poland. In the midst of this mechanized power grab was the relatively tiny nation of Finland, which had been apportioned to the communists.
Apologists for Stalinist history (propagandists) have attempted to argue that the subsequent attack on Finland was merely about “border territories” which the communists claimed were stolen by the Finns when they seceded from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. The assertion that the soviets were not seeking total dominance of the Finns is a common one. However, given the vicious criminal behavior of Russia in nearby pacified regions, and their posture towards Finland, it is safe to assume their intentions were similar. The Finns knew what they had to look forward to if they fell victim to the iron hand of Stalin, and the soviet propensity for subjugation was already legendary.
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In America, the only existing organization of people with the slightest chance of disrupting and defeating the march towards totalitarianism is what we often refer to as the “Liberty Movement”; a large collection of activist and survival groups tied together by the inexorable principles of freedom, natural law, and constitutionalism. The size of this movement is difficult to gauge, but its social and political presence is now too large to be ignored. We are prevalent enough to present a threat, and prevalent enough to be attacked, and that is all that matters. That said, though we are beginning to understand the truly vital nature of our role in America’s path, and find solidarity in the inherent values of liberty that support our core, when it comes to solutions to the dilemma of globalization and elitism, we are sharply divided.
Thanks, Bandon. Thought provoking indeed.
Divide and Conquer
Although I may agree that the “Liberty Movement” has grown, it is essential to understand that large governments which have overstepped their grant of authority and strayed from their foundational moorings, i.e., a constitutional republic, fear the idea of its citizens becoming informed enough to expose such failures and mount a challenge to correct and re-establish those boundaries. To avoid this they begin a long train of abuses intended to confuse, malign, disinform, alienate, and keep divided the masses. One of the oldest and surest means of accomplishing this is the “Divide and Conquer Strategy,” also known as the “Divide and Rule Strategy.”
It is applied in the political and sociological arenas in an attempt to keep smaller informed factions from uniting and posing a unified front to halt the arbitrary usurpation of power.
As we investigate this phenomenon we will see that this is precisely what is happening in America.
Involved in this strategy we find, of necessity, one power, a large and strong power, with access to strong economic, political, and military machines, breaks another power into smaller fragments making them easier to control and manage, i.e. the states are no longer sovereign (even if you disagree with this state of affairs, it cannot be contested the states are manipulated and ruled by the federal government in almost every area, including the legislatures via the Supreme Court).
To maintain this division a plethora of techniques are used. In the modern age we have the prolific use of the media to disinform, distract, deny, and misinform, along with other tactics, to paint a picture that contains some truth but only the kind of truth which maintains the illusion that all is well and those who disagree are in the minority and, for the most part, are uninformed, radical, and extremists who are just trying to destroy our American dream and way of life.
In addition, it is a common strategy to include fostering animosity, in-fighting, or conflict between the smaller groups to maintain the desired division and keep those who are genuinely dedicated to exposing the truth from uniting in their common goals. This requires a dedication to understanding these groups in order to manipulate them in the desired direction. Consequently, we have dedicated government agencies or organizations intent on gaining as much information as possible, many times contrary to individual rights, to be used in undermining and dividing these groups. They do not use the information to speak the truth about a group, but rather to slant that information to make these groups appear as fringe groups that are lawless or a law unto themselves.
It is also a common practice to take the one organization that is truly extremist and lump all the others into that same category.
The divide and conquer strategy has been widely used throughout history. Both the Roman empire and the British empire played small tribes and groups against one another in order to control their lands and territories. It was used by the Romans when they took Britain, when the British Empire took India, and when the Anglo-Normans took Ireland. A staple political strategy, divide and conquer is still used by many countries today, and it cannot be denied it is happening to us right here on our own shores by our own, and I use the phrase “our own” lightly, government.
This little essay is just a primer however, on the many and varied tactics used to divide the country and keep it from uniting to re-establish constitutional government.