Bridging the Gap

 

I gradually lost my fascination with weapons but they remain useful. The weapons that the richer citizens of this nation have used in the latest round of class warfare are subtle. They seldom have to resort to guns these days. Pinkerton Agents no longer beat union organizers or shoot them down in cold blood. We seldom see armed guards at the gates of even the homes of the wealthiest citizens anymore.

 

The lack of violence in suppressing the drive to gain in wealth by everyone below the highest levels of incomes is real. It is due to the effectiveness of anti-tax rhetoric and other propaganda tools that have proven far more powerful than guns. The new reality of our economic disaster is now washing those tools down the drain of history.

 

You see, class warfare is as old as the human race and seems to be an eternal conflict. It is just another piece of the struggle to survive and thrive. Denigrating it has not removed it from the social whirl, it just put a new spin on the wheel of fortune. We are moving past that now. The new version of class warfare will get uglier and bloodier before this round is over. Look south of the border to Mexico if you want to see the misery of a social architecture based on a few wealthy families dominating the legal economy.

 

The only way up for under-educated aggressive young men there is often to join a gang or drug cartel as they are fancifully called in our press. The cartels are arming a new revolution of class against class in Mexico. This may actually morph into a civil war and a few oligarchs may have to move to Spain or elsewhere for a while. That does not need to happen here. All we need is to remove the tax burden from the working classes that they have lived with for the last thirty years. They will use that to build new wealth, they always have before.

 

Of course that means that the investing classes will pay a little more but that is cheaper than civil war. Funny how the only calls for Revolution are emanating from the champions of the wealthy investor classes. They haven't even been wounded yet. Nor is anyone trying to post their heads on the walls of our capitol. The people don't even need guns unless the wealthy condone mass slaughter or violent suppression.

 

That is why we are a stable nation and the wealthiest nation in the world. We generally reach a compromise in the ongoing class wars without the need for a lot of bloodshed. I trust that will still be true in the most part this time. I don't even own that faithful old twenty two anymore and the target is harder to see these days. Maybe I would need a shotgun for this fight.

 

Hopefully it won't come to that but a lot of us are still willing to march and even fight in the streets if it is forced on us. We will never bring out the guns unless the other side resorts to violent suppression. We do not believe in violence as a means to solving problems of class and wealth but we will not cave in to it either.

 

That is the history of class warfare in this nation. It is also why we had the largest and strongest middle class in the world. We fought for the power to build our lives here as well as elsewhere in the world. We will do that again if it becomes necessary.

 

That is the fact that no one discusses anymore when the issue of class warfare comes up. The people here will fight if they are pushed to the wall. You can bank on it! In the end the people here will win more with their votes and voices than anyone ever wins with less powerful weapons like guns. That is why our system has survived and the people here continue to thrive. Guns are a side issue in our class wars. Let's keep it that way, shall we?