Know Who You are Dealing With

Please bear in mind that labeling people into groups is not always accurate, and overall not even a good routine to fall into when dealing with people as individuals.    But when the label and the group is according to their self-interests, those labels can be useful.   Here are some of the major divisions I see operating in America right now...

1) A parasitic financial sector:   This is a very small group, but they are subsuming more and more of the economy.   They have influence out of proportion to their size.  Employees of the big five banks for example.

2) Government Workers:   These are people directly employed by the government.   Some of them provide legitimate service, but many of them are also parasites.   They do nothing to produce more wealth in our economy, they only redistribute the wealth earned by a shrinking pool of others.

3) Corporations in Government Cartel industries:  These are industries which make money not by appealing to customers, but by lobbying the government to force people to purchase products against their will.   The healthcare, defense, and education industries are three big examples.  Because they push debt, group one overlaps into this sector.

4) Wanna Bes:  These are not all big shots.  Some of them are local chamber of commerce types operating the same scam on a local level.      Chief among these are the small cadre of establishment shills that show up at Rotary Club and Republican County Committee meetings.   Their purpose is to maintain a status quo that is patently unjust, completely unsustainable, but from whose table they imagine themselves getting crumbs.   Examples might include local businessmen whose business gets a substantial boost from government contracts.   In theory they are "conservatives" but in practice they want to keep the party going till the card is maxed out.   Group #4 is where groups 1-3 get their local legitimacy.

5) Net producers:  This shrinking group represents what is left of the middle and upper middle class, as well as some rich people who made their money outside of the first three groups.   They are the ones paying for almost all of the unjust wealth being extracted from the nation by the top three groups above as well as the last group.   This group, when you look over their lifetime, is where most but not enough of the activists come from.

6) Those breaking even:  This is the working class or people who were formerly middle class.   They now pay as much into the government as the get out of it.    They are not net wealth consumers, they are not parasites, but they are not adding any wealth either.   They are on net neither looting nor being looted.

7) The dependent:   These are the single mothers married to the government.   The faux-disabled.   The never or rarely employed.    Groups 1-3 has money, but by themselves do not (until recent times) have the votes to suppress and loot group #4.   Group #7 is where they get their votes.    They have conditioned this group to reflexively oppose politicians who will lower spending or taxes (since they benefit from some of that spending while the bill for it goes to group #4).
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The task of the activist then is to mobilize the full power of group #5, their natural base.    We can split some from group #4, but not many.   Even those who support us will be more likely to do so if we ask them in ways that are quiet.   Group #6 can be and is split.   Few of them except the young and single can be counted on to do much activism.   They are just trying to survive.     They can become a swing vote on election day though, if properly educated and motivated.    The fear of losing government benefits must be countered by the fear of losing social mobility added to the knowledge that the benefits are not sustainable anyway.

The dependent, many of them, hate the system they rely on.   Still, they are locked in a cycle.   They will not let go of their government lifeline unless they have hold of a firm alternative.