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CLASS_WAR

                                             February 14, 2010

   Resolved: we shall not speak of "Class War":

      Reason the first: it's stale,
      and carries with it too much                    And just because Free
      rhetorical baggage, a reek of      ANARCHY      Markets have fallen on
      discredited ideologies.                         hard times, it does not
                                                      follow that Marx Was
                                                      Right.
      Reason the second: We don't
      actually want there to be a                         MARXIST_REVIVAL
      "Class War".  Predicting class
      war may be a self-fufilling
      prohecy.  You might say it's
      "unnecessarily divisive".
                                                    If you actually want
                                                    to *win* a war, it's
      Third I suspect that it's                     far better to have
      not actually accurate.                        the rich on your side
      Do "the rich" really         And are "the     than against you.
      consititute a "class"?       rich" really
                                   the enemy?
      Doesn't that conflate old                           The way you sell
      money with new?  Certainly                          them on this is to
      some of the richest are                             point out that
      parvenus (Google, Apple,                            they've got more
      Facebook...).                   Bill Gates          cash then they can
                                      came from           imagine uses for,
                                      wealth, but         and tell them
                                      he's not            they're in danger
                                      exactly "old        of losing their
                                      money"              soul if they don't
                                                          ease up.
        If power has been seized
        by a group of people,
        the first thing to do is                          SERPENTINE_KISS
        establish who is in that           HANDS
        group, study the nature                           (And you can always
        of that group -- it's                             threaten them with
        not a good idea to just                           the guillotine later.)
        adopt an empty label
        that presumes that you                              And there are
        already know all that.                              often more
                                                            direct arguments:
        Isn't it likely that there                          you'd be even
        are factions inside that                            richer if it
        set, differences among the                          weren't for the
        rich and powerful?                                  Bush league.

        Knowing something about
        those factions would
        seem to be a good idea, no?

                                                  One might even try
                                                  playing the factions
                                                  against each other.



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