In “The Coming Revolt of the Guards” Zinn talks about how the elite oppress the ordinary people. Writing, “All those histories of this country centered on the Founding Fathers and the Presidents weigh oppressively on the capacity of the ordinary citizen to act.” The Founding Fathers of course being elites themselves wanted to make sure that they were able to control the common man. That’s why only the rich white landowners had voting rights back then. Now however, the elite displays their control in different ways, “One percent of the nation owns A third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled.” The elite want to put the rest of the United States against each other for their own gain, and that’s not right.
Zinn says that there is a growing dissension in the 99 percent, and that it isn’t just the poor people. However, “Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line. These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods.” This dissension doesn’t bode well for the establishment because they just want to keep the normal. The establishment doesn’t want the rest of the people to focus on them, but they want to keep the rest of the people fighting amongst themselves. This is because they are able to keep their power when there are disputes amongst the rest of the people.
I wonder if the top 1% of America realizes the civil unrest in the bottom 99% of the population. If so, why aren’t they threatened that their livelihood or the livelihood of their progeny will be negatively affected? Do they, perhaps, have a contingency plan that we, the bottom 99%, are not aware of but will effectively crush our plans to execute radical change on a large scale?
The idea of turning the general population against each other is massively pervasive throughout American history. I think it causes a huge sense of disillusionment, one that Zinn described in “The Unreported Resistance” and other chapters. As long as the slim class of elites controls governing and economic policies, a massive class of Americans will be isolated from change.
I completely agree with Zinn’s point that it is problematic that one percent of the United States owns a third of the wealth in our country. After mentioning this fact, Zinn later points out that one of the main reasons he wrote PHUS was to unite the 99 percent within the United States, and “…represent their submerged, deflected common interests” I really admire Zinn as he has brought so much awareness to the beliefs of minority groups throughout the history of the United States in PHUS.
I totally agree with you. If the middle and lower class would come together rather than fight amongst themselves, they would have more than enough power to overthrow the upperclass. However, this task is easier said than done, with so many different perspectives it is hard to unite people to achieve one common goal.
It’s a commonly-known fact that the Founding Fathers, when creating the Constitution and discussing how they wanted to construct the new nation of the United States, were generally worried about the “masses” and wanting to keep control in the hands of the few educated elites. Perhaps this was not necessarily the same elitism as is propped up by capitalism today, but it sets the precedent – the government and the institutions that comprise our country are not meant forr us, the people. I agree with you in the idea of the need for middle-class mobilization – rather than getting distracted by infighting and conflicts between each other, the “masses”, or bottom 99%, need to start holding the elite accountable and fighting against a system meant to protect only the wealthy.