Hi Balcairn, thanks for the comment and you're absolutely spot on: the media is the weapon the corporate-controlled governments use to divide and conquer populations who have much more in common than they have differentiating them.

Race, gender, sexual orientation - sure these things are important - but in the face of the common enemy all these differences become spurious and inconsequential.

Since time immemorial, the powers that be have been terrified of oppressed peoples disregarding their superficial/petty differences in the recognition of shared exploitation and immiseration. That is why even when slavery was abolished, the states gave free lands to the white working class to guarantee their sense of superiority and ensure that they would not band together with labouring blacks.

The one thing I disagree with you on is the notion that the stakes are too high to rise up - I say, the stakes are now too high not to and I believe people in many countries (even in ones like China where the state is overtly violent) are demonstrating that they aren't afraid anymore.

To let this charade continue is to ensure the demise of our species within a few short decades.....that's how high the stakes now are.