But in the end, when the elite ruling minority had oppressed the people too much, there would be an uprising, a revolution, to bring the power back to the people.
It is a common rule of physics that two unequal weights can be balanced if the base upon which they are balanced, the fulcrum, is moved from the middle to one side. It changes the leverage of the weights involved. The use of the fulcrum makes the heavy lifting easier. It's what makes a wheelbarrow or dolly work.
In a sheer numbers game, the populace on one side of the teeter totter and the ruling elite on the other side, the fulcrum being in the middle, then the populace always had the leverage.
But the ruling elite have figured out the leverage game. They continue to move the fulcrum closer and closer to the populace until all of our weight feels like it can't move them.
Sometimes I feel powerless in the face of the empire that America has become. I have to remind myself of the times when human beings took back control. If and when it comes down to it, I will fight. But I hope that we can bring an end to this corrupt totalitarian regime without bloodshed.
But let's be real. We are on the brink. In many ways we have let our democracy go over a cliff. It's like we are desperately clinging to it as it dangles from a thin cord, as it threatens to fall into the abyss. Once it has gone this far we can not get if back without understanding leverage.
So let's start with the basics. Yes, there are more of us than there are of them. But right now they have leverage. For one, they own 95 percent of our politicians. We have to get them out. We have to demand that the money they have acquired through their corruption not be used to buy their way into more power.
The second thing we need to do is recognize that fascist ideology believes in dividing and ranking people. Hierarchy is extremely important to them. The elite create these hierarchies usually with white heterosexual males on top, often with exaggerated "ubermensch" characteristics, pro-violent, pro-war, more emphasis on virility. Women are a lower scale and can only be prized as good "breeders". Other races are considered inferior. Homosexuals are considered "deviant" etc.
By dividing people the elite pull some segments of the populace towards the middle of the teeter totter. White christian men get to come towards the middle. Of course they will never be in the elite class but they are closer than white women and by the time the elite are done ranking us, the lower classes, people of color, religious minorities, and homosexuals are at the very end of the teeter totter.
You see for all the right wing complaints about "identity politics" of the left they are the big dividers of people into classes. What they don't like about the left is that many of us have figured out how they use this ranking tool against us and by talking about it, by exposing it, we do some damage to their best tool
Aside from issues of race and gender, the elite divide us in other ways too. It's like a point system where you are rewarded with points for race and gender but also you can gain points for capitulating to "acceptable" ideas and denouncing "unacceptable" ones.
Religion is a big one. Choosing the "right religion" can give you a few points. Being "patriotic" gets you a lot of points. Advocating for ideologies such as capitalism, empire building and any ideology which at its core is a ranking system gets you points because it shows you understand and support hierarchy.
Any advocacy for a system which is egalitarian in any way, support for any idea which puts the interest of the group above the individual will cost you points.
People who find themselves at the far end if the teeter totter, minorities of any kind, whites who support socialism, they will be demonized by the elite. The elite wants to destroy these groups. As authoritarian movements gain steam they begin to use these groups as a whipping boy. They start to instigate discrimination at every level of society by encouraging people to look down on anyone below them on the scale.
Early socialists were keenly aware of this trick of the elite and were avid supporters of equal rights for women and people of color.
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