The Weak Crumble
Netanyahu spells it out for us …
“The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong”.
This is one of my favourite quotes; not because of any particular estimation of the character of Netanyahu but because what he say is so painfully obvious and yet so obviously discounted by many who discuss politics and urge us to party political partisanship.
When people discuss why a politician acts in this or that way they most often think about the politician’s beliefs or the rights and wrongs of the issue; they don’t consider the realities and interplay of power that may be the biggest factor in any decision.
We have to recognise the reality of the way that things are. We may have to work with the structures of power, including the structures within political parties but must do so without buying in the illusion that they serve the weak ‘many’ rather than the powerful ‘few’.
If we, the ‘weak’ many, want our interests to be served then we must first look to each other. Our strength lies in our numbers and that is why established power wants to keep us divided and wants to keep us dependent by recruiting us into parties that are structures of control rather than structures of empowerment.
George Carlin understood this.
We have to recognise the reality and resist becoming increasingly divided and dependent. We have to turn to each other, learn about each other, support each other and build structures that genuinely empower us.
How do we do this? I don’t know. Perhaps you do. Certainly we should be talking it.