Sometimes the simplest message can become profound.
Consider this simple one below:
This contains some powerful tricks to break personal connections that prevent people from working together. It does this by inserting economic jealousy, class hatred, and greed into a simple cookie analogy.
In this case, the banker has the power to tell the story, so he frames the argument. (This is a given in any social interaction, so people should be alert about the speaker’s perspective, frame of reference and ultimate goals.) The banker ends up with 19 of the 20 cookies, so to keep them, he creates tension and economic jealousy between the worker and the immigrant. This diverts attention from the banker who somehow ended up with almost all the cookies.
The banker injects the class warfare possibility into the situation by saying there are limited resources. If the immigrant gets a worker’s cookie, there are none left. This makes the situation more immediate to the worker, who now is afraid. Fear keeps the immigrant and the immigrant off balance, and diverts attention from the real issue (why the banker has the 19 cookies.)
This scenario has played itself out through history. It continues today when people don’t question the basic assumptions of the storyteller (such as FOX), who commonly say there are limited economic resources or the current allocation of resources is the status quo. Proposing a solution, (such as higher taxes) is off-limits.
So in an election year, beware of these arguments. The middle class should be more like the top 1%: vote for your own economic self-interests. The middle-class does not get tax breaks, nor do they determine the allocation of the nation’s financial resources. They can only earn a paycheck, pay taxes and manage their own expenses. They do not have access to financial engineering tricks or preferred access to capital markets or sophisticated hedge funds.
They don’t have anywhere near the cookies controlled by the top 1%.
