I recall something I heard once... Something about how a certain group had all the money and all the power, how they were responsible for many of society's ills, how the only way for the common people to defend themselves would be through persecution and violence...

I think this was in... Germany, in the 1930s.

The Casts have their human villains espousing rhetoric similiar to the Nazi Party towards the Jews... except that the humans in these books are largely RIGHT.

tl;dr: The same as everyone else pointed out, but with added fail.