This was originally posted on January 24, 2012

I’ve heard and read a lot of references lately to the “Democrat plantation”.  The term refers to the belief that Americans of African descent will tend to support Democrat politicians and causes so long as Democrats continue to provide them with bread and circuses.

I’m not just calling out Democrats on this.  The Republicans have their taken-for-granted class too: conservative voters.  For an example, consider the push to make Romney the nominee even though his appeal to the conservative base of the party is shaky at best.

You can call them plebs, serfs, peasants, peons, or whatever; it’s all the same:  people who are brought up in a system that assumes that they are at the bottom of the ladder, don’t see that there are better options, and have little to no motivation to find something better or different are used to ensure that some political movement or another gets and stays in power.

Every person or group that wants to exert control over everyone else requires a lower class because it provides the muscle, either at the ballot box or in the street.  The Chekists in the USSR didn’t draw from the cream of Bolshevik society.  They recruited their foot soldiers from the lower classes of Russian/Soviet culture and used them to instill fear in anyone who might oppose the regime.

The Democrats have their reliable voting block of urban African-Americans.  The Republicans have their reliable voting block of conservative middle-class voters.  Either way, they’re all just peasants working the fields of those who tell them just enough scary stories about the bogeymen on the other plantation to keep them in line and voting a straight party ticket.

Thoughts like this are one of the reasons that I’m considering myself an independent voter more and more.   Maybe I’m just cynical, but I honestly don’t believe that either party cares at all about what happens to the people on the streets of America so long as their personal gravy trains and power trips keep rolling. In this way, they’re no better in my eyes than the most staunch Stalinist or banana republic dictator.  So long as we all know our place and do as directed, they’re just fine.  If one of us pokes our head up and dares to bleat out of time with the rest of the herd, then they drop the hammer down on us or cut us off from the herd lest our disease of independent thinking infect the rest of the flock.  Only if enough of us make our voices heard do we have hope that those who think they rule our country will listen.

So I’m going to stop being a good peasant.  I will vote for a good Democrat instead of a bad Republican if I think that the Dem would do a better job.  I refuse to vote for or against something on the ballot just because the local Republican committee thinks I ought to, and I won’t be quiet about it.  Hopefully others will get the same idea.

What do you call it when the peasants quit working the fields or toiling in the factories?  You call it revolution.