"Class Warfare"

With all this talk about "class warfare", I've been thinking about the teaching of the "isms". Under Fascism the classes were all suppose to work toward the betterment of the state and the individual did not count for much other than what they could do for the state. Under Communism the classes were all suppose to disappear with society then being one big classless structure. What about the classes under American Democracy? They clearly exist, there does not seem to be any disagreement with that. It seems that in this country all the classes are suppose to be happy in their place-you know the phrase "know their place"-and even look up to or hope to become one of the "elite" one percent.

It just appears to me that the lower classes-which ever ones they are-are placed in a status of second-class citizenship who are suppose to accept whatever the society-the elite-wants to let them have. I am going to use a term here that everyone knows and I hope you try to understand where I am coming from. You don't have to be an Afro-American to be a nigger in the USA today. A person put in that group is one without rights and open for persecution. I see that term as what our society imposes on other people; not what those other people in fact are. I remember back in my teaching days in the 1970's we used an article entitled "the student as nigger" and while I don't have that article anymore, I have a sense that it could apply to many in our society today: gays, poor people, Latinos, certain religious groups, homeless.