[Peace-discuss] Howard Zinn speaks

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

Jenifer,

 

To a certain extent you are correct, we do talk and hear about class all the
time; but in the US class is not viewed in terms of caste, which entraps
persons and where passing or mobility is limited, restrictively difficult if
not impossible, and economics of poverty is transparently visible at every
turn like in other countries.  Instead, we tend to view class as merely a
gradation on a continuum which allow for easy passage and mobility from one
level to another, where everyone has the resources and access to paths and
doorways that lead up the ladder to the next class (Heratio Alger ride
again) and where even the lower classes aspire to be treated and seen as
being middle class - not to mention actually becoming part of the class -
and upper class persons pretend to be middle class despite their affluence
and life styles.  We tend to ignore the real impoverished underclasses and
focus on the lower classes and working classes who are doing well when
compared to the lower classes and working classes in third world countries;
but are not doing so well when compared to the upper classes in the US.

 

In our culture, people identify with classes the same way the identify with
race and ethnicity; but even the latter have some cultural identity and
interests attached to them which form a tradition and ideological base that
distinguishes the different races and ethnic groups.  Our socio-economic
classes are classes without any ideological commitments or identity except
to a set of establishment values defined around corporate capitalism,
American Jingoism and arrogance, and fundamentalist religiosity with respect
to public appearances but not practices, and individualistic self-interest
and promotion. 

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Jenifer
Cartwright
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:11 PM
To: C. G. Estabrook; Morton K. Brussel
Cc: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Howard Zinn speaks

 

I couldn't get the full text, and I'm usually a big Zinn fan... but I
certainly disagree w/ the statement below, because we talk/hear/read about
class in the US all the time: middle class; vanishing middle class; blue
collar workers; working class; working class background; underclass;
permanent underclass; upper class; educated clase; socio- economic status
(SES); extreme poverty; climbers; social climbers; RHIP; VIPs; head honchos;
rank and file; Mr Charlie; the man; movers and shakers; above your station;
know your place, etc etc etc. Polls give us class (and other) data ad
infinitum -- which demographics voted for Clinton, Obama, McCain, etc. Class
humor is what moved Larry the Cable Guy out of his trailer (so to speak) and
into top 1% of earners (I'm guessing), and class distinctions are used to
sell products from cars to cosmetics! Capitalism depends on a class system
for its existence, and nobody's trying to hide or deny it -- it's all right
out in the open for anyone to see.

 --Jenifer   

"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

Maybe so, but he makes here an absolutely crucial point, the very point that

most self-described liberals (and even more the purveyors of identity
politics) 
can't accept. Covering that over is what Clinton, Obama et al. are all
about. --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> From ZNet: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16498#Comments
> 
> Zinn sounds a little less buoyant than usual. 
> 
> /.Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a 
> commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn't 
> talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, 
> "Father of the Constitution," said, thirty years before Marx was born 
> that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had 
> property and those who did not./
> 
> /Our present leaders are not so candid. They bombard us with phrases 
> like "national interest," "national security," and "national defense" as 
> if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, 
> rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same 
> interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as 
> the young man or woman he sends to war./
> 
> /Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the 
> biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American 
> people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with 
> different interests in this country. To ignore that-not to know that the 
> history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, 
> landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against 
> poor-is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by 
> people in power. ./
> /
> /
> /--mkb/

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