Divide and Rule - duh!
Job well done, Bristol City Council!
Since the ‘warzone’ events of 13th March there’s been quite a lot of attention paid to the idea that Bristol City Council’s crazed ‘Liveable Neighbourhood’ activities are having the tragic knock-on effect of dividing East Bristol’s community by race and class.
Here’s what one resident had to say at the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) meeting with outgoing Metro Mayor Dan Norris on 15th March:
Our community is being split on race and class lines by the actions of the City Council, for the third time in a row, and each time that that split occurs, we have greater and greater problems bringing the community back together. You’re all aware, that at the moment there are extremists on all sides trying to find ways of talking to people who are disaffected…and this process is feeding it.
(Statements on the EBLN situation are from timestamp 17:20 and these words are from 21:40)
Maybe not so ‘knock on’? Is it not obvious that when a council wants to push through a policy it knows is unpopular, the tried and tested strategy of divide and rule will usually do the trick? The political bodies involved, having agreed the funding for this project and, as they incessantly repeat, not wishing to waste the money, will be looking for ways to implement it regardless of local opposition. Whether this is driven by the alleged concern for public health and safety, by carbon reduction goals somehow related to what is perceived to be happening to the global climate, by a desire to make it look like they are aiming for these goals when they are in fact very busy expending vast amounts of carbon on building projects, or by purely dictatorial and insidious impulses doesn’t really matter at this point. They’re on a mission and they want it done.
If the local communities were to be united against the mobility restrictions the politicians’ job would be much tougher. I suspect hearing the above statement was quite pleasing to the WECA officials, which include Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer of the Green Party. Yessss! Job done! Especially the feeding extremism bit.
I can’t actually say it better than Geoff Buys Cars does here in his second video on the subject:
‘Our community is being split’ - stop! They want communities to be split, because community makes you stronger, community makes you love the area that you’re in, and without community it’s much easier to divide us.
‘…on race and class…’ - Brilliant - so what are they going to do, they’re going to block off the poor areas of a town and they’re going to do nothing with the wealthy areas of a town. Is that good for community? Does that create a cohesive environment of people, or does it divide people even further?
So start asking questions about the intentions of these low traffic neighbourhoods. [Emphasis mine]
On the remark about ‘extremists’, Geoff has this to say:
Who are the extremists in this? You’ve got, I’m assuming, Tony Dyer … and the Green lobbyists - they must be the extremists on one side - and the extremists on the other side are I guess everybody who is watching this video.
It is indeed a very good question as to which extremism ‘on all sides’ is being fed, but even more importantly who is really doing the feeding. Those questions about the intentions behind LTNs again...
Similar words regarding the EBLN have been picked up on in this article from the Daily Mail.
Well, it’s the Mail, so why not publish an article looking like it’s about immigrant communities and the working class being on the same side, knowing that many readers will be pro the latter and anti the former, enabling a nice bit of limbic triggering, extremism, and divide and rule. I suspect the editor was delighted to have the quotation ‘ethnic cleansing on steroids’ included in the article.
True to form, see how many likes this comment below received. Some Mail readers seem to be quite up for a bit of ethnic cleansing.
All of which has got nothing to do with what Bristol City Council is actually doing to its residents, i.e. removing freedoms for all. It’s just, as usual, it’s the already economically and socially comparatively disadvantaged who suffer the most. Clean Air Zones, anyone?
This concise comment was close to the truth:
And the following was even better, as it sums it all up and I couldn’t resist rating it, as you can see. Because I’m a conspiracy realist, obviously.
But I’ll end with this one, out of sheer relief that the Great Lion is on our side. He’s not wrong about Park Street, but please do still come to Bristol or THEY* will have won…
*The Hierarchy Exploiting/Enslaving/Extinguishing/Etc You
Addendum: Today (25/03) this article from Bristol 24/7 has come to my attention. A brief scan of the comments shows I might have to do a Divide and Rule - duh Part II, which will focus on the role 24/7 is playing in this scripted drama.
Well they can milk the class and culture divide for east Bristol but they won't be able to do that so easily in the south as the same street closures happen there. Indigenous Bristolians versus the Clifton offshoot of higher earners isn't quite so dramatic. Let's hope they see the bigger agenda by the time the it kicks off there.
Looking at those zones or whatever they call them I’d be very concerned. Some are much smaller in terms of number of streets than others, now maybe there are tower blocks in those streets but if there is not I don’t think those parks are going to remain green areas for long. If my suspicion is correct the long term aim is to build on parts of them, no doubt calling it “Affordable housing”